US moviegoers are flocking to the latest version of Lassie Come Home. But some experts believe the inspiration for the story was a shipping disaster.

The film, based on a 1938 novel by Eric Knight, tells how Lassie was sold by her Yorkshire owners to an aristocrat in Scotland. It follows the dog's adventures as she tries to make it home.

According to writer Nigel Clarke, the real-life Lassie was a crossbred collie who saved the life of a British sailor in WW1.

After a battleship sunk off Dorset, losing 500 people on board, defence chiefs ensured that, as a morale booster, the tale of Lassie was sent around the world.

The story must have been seen by Yorkshire-born Knight, who was then a serviceman in the US.

SOURCE: Daily Mail, as published in The Star, page 28, Johannesburg, South Africa, 20 December 2005.

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