Jean Pitts pictured in the 1970s

A former women’s features editor of a Sussex weekly has died at her home in Hove, aged 89.

Jean Pitts started out in journalism during the Second World War and served as an Army press officer as well as working in General Sir Brian Horrocks’s office when he was GOC, Western Command.

She joined Beckett Newspapers, now part of Johnston Press, in 1968 and continued working for the Worthing Herald for 20 years.

Her regular column, entitled Jean’s Jottings, was said by colleagues to “express her bubbly personality to the full.”

After her retirement, Jean helped set up Brighton’s University of the Third Age, where she edited the newsletter.

A humanist funeral for Jean, who leaves a son and two grandsons, was held at the Downs Crematorium, Brighton.