The residents of a Devon village who became the focus of worldwide attention can now relax after a fictional wrong has been put right after 30 years, reports Mike Byrne.

BEST-SELLING author Michael Morpurgo and the villagers of Iddesleigh celebrated the hanging of a painting of Joey the fictional equine star of his bestselling novel War Horse – now an Oscar nominated movie directed by Steven Spielberg.

Mr Morpurgo specially commissioned the painting to put right a fictional wrong in the novel which has been taken literally by its millions of readers for 30 years.

War Horse tells the fictional tale of Joey a horse sold to the British Army at the outbreak of WWI and was inspired when Michael Morpurgo met World War I veterans who drank in his local pub at Iddesleigh and who had been in the Devon Yeomanry

The author's note at the beginning of the book written in 1981 has a fictional account describing the picture of Joey hanging in the village hall in the quaint rural village – 'In the old school they now use for the village hall, below the clock that has stood always at one minute past ten, hangs a small dusty painting of a horse.'

But there never was a painting hanging in the hall – it was simply a device created by Morpurgo as a way of telling the incredible story of the lives of WWI veterans he had met.

But the lack of a painting has proved a huge disappointment for countless fans of the story worldwide who have made special pilgrimages to Devon just to see it.

For Joan Weeks daughter in law of Albert Weeks one of the veterans who inspired the author and who lives next door to the village hall the situation was particularly acute.

Since the success of the National Theatre production of the novel first staged in 2006 and the recent excitement around the Spielberg film she has been inundated with War Horse enthusiasts searching for the painting of Joey.

But their quest has always been in vain as the painting never existed – until now.

It was after Mrs Weeks grumbled to Michael Morpurgo that he asked the equine artist Ali Bannister to create a real oil painting of the fictional horse to be hung in the appropriate location.

He met the artist when she was creating sketches of Joey on the set of the Steven Spielberg movie during filming in Wiltshire.

And the painting was hung in Iddesleigh Village Hall during a celebration for all the villagers of Iddesleigh.

It even bears the same inscription on it as the fictional painting from the novel – Joey painted by Captain James Nicholls Autumn 1914.

Michael Morpurgo said: "I've finally changed a big black lie into a little white lie.

"The purpose of the book is to tell the story of Joey and the people who knew him and the war they lived and died in.

"But the author's note is an invention – it's how I wanted the story to start.

"For 30 years people have taken it literally.

"For 25 of those years just a few people turned up at the village hall to see the painting – which didn't exist.

"But since the National Theatre production that became a lot more.

"And I expect now the Spielberg film has been released it will increase again.

"Mrs Weeks got fed up because they'd always knock at her door to ask where they could see the painting.

"And she had to say to them it was a fiction and didn't exist – and she got really fed up of it.

"And of course the visitors would go away really disappointed

"So she complained to me.

"But it was during the making of the Spielberg film that I met Ali Bannister the wonderful equine artist who did the drawings for the film and feature in it.

"It occurred to me it gave me a way around the problem if I commissioned her to paint Joey in an old style as he was in the novel.

"Then I could have it put up in the hall and people could go there and see the picture in situ – and believe it was true.

"So that's what we've done.

"So now nobody will have to have a go at Mrs Weeks about this horrible man who's written something that just isn't true.

"People can go to the hall and walk away happy – with their truth.

He added that the painting wasn't a total lie because he himself owned an old painting of a race horse called Topthorn he bought from one of the WWI veterans he met in his local pub that were the inspiration for the novel.

"I showed that picture to Ali," he said "And told her the painting of Joey's had to look like that. And that's what she's done."

Speaking after the unveiling Joan Weeks said she was delighted the painting had gone up in the village hall.

"I'm very pleased about it," she said.

"I shall now be able to tell people that come to see the painting where it is.

"My father-in-law Albert didn't speak about the war much to me. Just from time to time. But I'm glad the painting has now gone up in the village.

"I expect he'd have been happy about that."

It was from the village of Iddesleigh and its inhabitants that Mr Morporgo drew much of his inspiration for the novel.

It was whilst talking to veterans from the First World War in the local pub The Duke of York that he heard about the men who had gone from the village to the war – including Wilfred Ellis, Albert Weeks and Captain Arthur Budgett.

As a result his book War Horse was dedicated to these men. Relatives of the three veterans including Dorothy Ellis, the widow of Wilfred Ellis and Joan Weeks, the daughter-in-law of Albert Weeks were at the ceremony.