A regional daily is to hand over more than £3,000 to the Royal British Legion Poppy Appeal after donating 25pc of ad revenues from its WW1 supplement.

The South Wales Argus marked the centenary of the start of the First World War on Monday with a special front page, a 48-page pull-out supplement and live online coverage.

The supplement, entitled Gwent’s Great War, featured a combination of Argus archive material and readers’ family stories of the war.

The Argus is donating a quarter of the supplement’s sponsorship and advertising revenue to the Gwent Poppy Appeal and editor Kevin Ward will soon be handing over a cheque for more than £3,200.
Said Kevin: “We were inundated with moving stories from our readers about the war service of their family members. In fact, we had too many to fit in the supplement so we will be publishing more stories in print and online over the next few weeks.

“I’m delighted we have been able to make a substantial donation to the Gwent Poppy Appeal, which does fantastic work for ex-service personnel and their families in our local area.

“Our live blog featured the many local services and events that marked the centenary of the declaration of war, along with readers’ tweets and emails, particularly during the Lights Out initiative.”

Last month the Newport-based title began a four-year project to mark the centenary by republishing its coverage of the war from 100 years ago every day. The daily archive section will run until November, 2018.