A columnist on a Scottish daily title is penning her final column today after 35 years with the paper.

Agony aunt and star interviewer Joan Burnie’s first column for the Daily Record appeared on 23 April 1979 – the week before Margaret Thatcher came to power.

The Trinity Mirror-owned title carried a double page spread in yesterday’s edition to pay tribute to a colleague described as a “media titan.”

Joan, pictured below,told the paper: “I don’t think there is any subject I haven’t written about or given an opinion on. It’s time to move on.”

Describing her impact on readers, the paper wrote: “Her opinions and her advice niggled our consciousness but also chimed with progressive opinion. There were as many fans as detractors and even a band called the Just Joans.”

Joan was a freelance for the early part of her career at the Record but eventually joined the staff in 1998, rising to become associate editor.

She added: “I don’t care what people say about me. I do care what I write about. I always felt I had a responsibility and I took it seriously.”

“I am interested in people but very few of the great and the good have impressed me. The people I will remember are the ordinary people I came across who had a raw deal but carried on with amazing resilience.”