FORMER local journalist Debbie Smith has died following a long illness.

Debbie worked for the Aldershot News during the mid-1970s and early 1980s, joining as a junior reporter and eventually becoming the paper’s chief reporter. She also spent a spell on the Surrey and Hants News based in the Farnham office where she was known under her maiden name of Comfort.

Debbie went on to freelance for national newspapers including the Sunday Telegraph and she also worked for several years in London at the headquarters of ITV’s Teletext service where she was a theatre critic, travel writer, health and finance specialist.

For the past 18 years she has been a director of her husband Paul’s public relations agency Paul Smith Associates based in Lower Froyle, near Alton.

Debbie, aged 57, passed away peacefully at Waverley Grange Care Home, Farnham, on Wednesday, October 5, following a courageous three-year battle with breast cancer. She leaves behind two daughters – Francesca, aged 22, and Daisy, 19.

John Elliott, former editor of the Aldershot News, said: “Debbie was a lovely person whose sparkling personality and sense of fun were guaranteed to being sunshine to the gloomiest of offices on a dull no-news day.

“In the time Debbie worked at The News I came to know her as a loyal and efficient reporter, whose dedication contributed much to the team and success of the paper. We can ill afford to lose people like that so young and in their prime.”

Paul Smith said: “Debbie was a brilliant writer and an intelligent and highly talented journalist who specialised across a wide range of subjects from crime reporting to health, finance, travel and showbiz.

“First and foremost though she was a devoted wife, marvellous mother to our two girls and the most loyal and caring of friends who was always great fun to be around.

“She leaves a void in our lives that will be impossible to fill but everyone who came into contact with Debbie during her all too short life will have nothing but the fondest of memories of her.”

The funeral service, which will be conducted by Debbie’s younger brother Rev Alan Comfort, will take place at the Church of St Michael The Archangel, Aldershot, at 11am on Thursday, October 20, followed by a private family service at Aldershot Crematorium.

A ‘Just Giving’ page has been set up in Debbie’s memory with proceeds going to Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice, Farnham at www.justgiving.com/fundraising/DebbieSmith1959