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By the time that the family outing was captured on film in the early 1920s, she was stout and middle-aged. But the white-haired matriarch with the picnic basket may have been the inspiration for Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

Augusta Way was an 18-year-old Dorset milkmaid when she caught the eye of the novelist Thomas Hardy, who was 48 at the time. Three years later, in 1891, he published what many consider one of the finest tragic novels.

Also in the photograph are Augusta’s daughters Gertrude and Norrie who, at the age of 102, is one of the few people alive to have known Hardy. Thirty-three years after the book was published, he cast Gertrude as Tess in a stage production of the work on account of her striking resemblance to her mother as a young woman. But the ageing author’s interest in Gertrude led to a jealous rift with his second wife, Florence, who bought the curtain down on both the play and any hopes that Gertrude might have had of a career on the stage.

Norrie Woodhall, the last surviving member of his theatrical group, the original Hardy Players, said: “Thomas Hardy told us that he used to walk past our mother each day when she was milking.

“She was a beautiful woman. He said himself that the memory must have entered his mind when he was creating the character of Tess, so when we did the play years later he cast Gertrude in the role.

“She must have been, for him, a reincarnation of the real Tess in our production. Gertrude was very good and wanted to be an actress, but Florence put a stop to that.”

Mrs Woodhall added: “Hardy used to walk to Kingston Maurward as the lady who lived there thought he was clever and gave him great encouragement. On his way he would walk past a grey manor house where my mother Augusta and three other families lived. My grandfather ran a dairy there and my mother and her sisters would sit outside and milk the cows. It was before my mother married when she was about 18 years old. She was very beautiful and must have caught his eye.

“I do not believe Hardy ever spoke to my mother though, as he was a very shy person. He would never have made advances.”

Augusta married Arthur Bugler soon afterwards and had three daughters, Eileen, Gertrude and Norrie, and a son, Arthur.

Mrs Woodhall, whose full name is Augusta Noreen, said: “My mother gave me her name, but I didn’t look like her and never grew as tall. Gertrude and my mother were very much alike. Gertrude was beautiful like her.

“When I was a teenager my sister and I were in the Hardy Players and Thomas Hardy would direct us.

“In 1924, we did a production of Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Thomas Hardy cast Gertrude as Tess. He made it a condition that she play the lead role. I was very shy so was given a smaller part of her sister Liza-Lu.

“Gertrude was a great success and Thomas Hardy sat in the audience and enjoyed it no end. Hardy would call her ‘the impersonator of Tess’.”

Norrie said that Florence disliked Gertrude: “Florence never liked the Hardy Players and she was insanely jealous of Gertrude.” She had written to Gertrude, insisting that she refuse Hardy’s request that she play the role of Tess in London.

“Shortly after that, Florence disbanded the players. She was a very deceitful woman and Hardy died not knowing the truth.

“I also liked acting and believe that if it was not for Florence, my life would have been different.”

Some believe that another claimant to be the woman who inspired Tess is Agatha Thornycroft, with whom Hardy sat at dinner in 1889.

Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the short version:

Tess Durbeyfield is a milkmaid whose father is convinced that he is distantly related to the D’Urberville family. She is sent to claim kinship, but finds out that the D’Urbervilles are a sham, having purchased the name.

Tess attracts the attentions of Alec D’Urberville, the heir to the estate, who drugs and rapes her. She escapes, only to give birth to a sickly infant who lives less than a week. Her marriage to Angel Clare, a farmer, is ruined when she confesses to her past. He sets sail for a new life in Brazil.

Later Tess becomes D’Urberville’s mistress, but when Clare returns she has a violent argument with D’Urber-ville that ends with him being fatally stabbed. She is arrested at Stonehenge and sentenced to death.

The even shorter version: a milkmaid falls foul of the nouveaux riches, tramps around Stonehenge and ends up in the hangman’s noose.

Tragic heroine of stage and screen down the years

Gertrude Bugler was cast in the role by Hardy because of her resemblance to her mother as a young woman

Blanche Sweet was an American silent movie actress who appeared in a 1924 production of Tess directed by Marshall Neilan

Dame Wendy Hiller was the first postwar Tess. She played the role to great acclaim at Bristol Old Vic in 1946

Nastassja Kinski played Tess in the Roman Polanski film Tess in 1979. She won a Golden Globe.

Pippa Guard played Tess in a BBC Radio play in 1982. She was also in a 1978 BBC production of The Mill on the Floss and has played numerous Shakespearean roles

Justine Waddell played Tess in a LWT production in 1998, directed by Ian Sharp

Gemma Arterton a Bond girl in Quantum of Solace, is playing Tess in the current BBC production written by David Nichol

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