As you might have seen in my Messines diary, I attended a couple of Plymouth Museum Great War events with the finished diorama. Before those events however I had also worked (voluntarily) with one of the National Trusts Great Estates down here, just across the Tamar in Cornwall with their own WW1 Exhibition. Cotehele House is an ancient Manor House just across the river from Morwellham Quay and their exhibition was based on the contribution made by Cornishmen during the Great War.
My old ex-employer Ellis Daw who founded the Dartmoor Wildlife Park outside of Plymouth had a large collection of papers and photographs belonging to his father William Ellis Archibald Daw and using those papers together with some (ok, a lot of!) internet research I put together a history of Archie's career which is now part of a large 'info book' for visitors to the exhibition to read through. The organisers had reported a far greater interest and attendance to the exhibition than they ever expected which was great! The exhibition will run for the full four years until 2018 (during the summer seasons) so if you are down this neck of the woods please have a look!
The following pages are Archie's story, it was written from Ellis' perspective so any 'I' or 'we' refers to him!

I hope you will enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed digging up the facts!

Robin