THANKS to Mr and Mrs May for dropping by with a fascinating discovery from a pub renovation.

This poster, photo and raffle ticket were found on the back wall of The Smugglers pub in Wyke Regis, Weymouth, whilst workmen were renovating.

Ann May, past president of Wyke Regis Women's Institute, said: "We think the poster is referring to the Whist Drive and Twelfth Night being in November 1930."

Whilst the Whist Drive was being held to raise money for the Eighth Army, the Shakespeare play was being staged by Wyke Regis WI to 'help to float the new HMS Dorsetshire'.

Mrs May added: "The workmen passed on the poster to me for the Wyke Regis WI because it forms part of our history."

"We wonder if anyone out there can give us any information on this event. We have scrapbooks, so we would like to include any information and the poster in the scrap book. Any information however small will be gratefully received."

Both Mr and Mrs May have done their own bit of research on the vessel HMS Dorsetshire, which was sunk during the Second World War. She was bombed by a Japanese carrier aircraft, west of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) on April 5, 1942.

Some 227 sailors were lost.

HMS Dorsetshire was built by Portsmouth Dockyard in 1927 and launched in 1929.

Dorsetshire served in the Atlantic and Home Fleets between 1930 and 1933. In February 1940 she intercepted the German Wakama off Rio. In the summer of that year she moved to the Freetown area where she was engaged in the operations against Vichy French territories and shipping, shadowing the battleship Richelieu on one occasion.

She was later employed to protect the Sierra Leone-Great Britain convoys occasionally as far afield as Bombay. While on these duties she intercepted tie raider supply ship Python west of St Helena on December 1 1941, surviving an attack from I-JA at the same time.

Japan brought her back to the Indian Ocean and and in March 1942 she was undergoing refit at Colombom this being halted on the approach of a Japanese carrier force. Dorsetshire sailed with HMS Cornwall to join the Eastern Fleet of the Maldives but on April 5 1942 she was sunk south east of the islands by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft, together with her consort.

Mrs May said any information received on the Whist Drive and Twelfth Night events, the photo, the ticket and on HMS Dorsetshire, however small, would be gratefully received.

You can contact Ann May by emailing davidmay37@tiscali.co.uk