A long-serving regional daily features editor marked her last day at the paper with a commendation at the Regional Press Awards.

Jayne Dawson, pictured, left the Yorkshire Evening Post on Friday after 24 years at the title.

She spent her last working day at the Regional Press Awards in London alongside other colleagues from the paper.

Jayne narrowly missed out on a perfect ending to her YEP career when the feature writer of the year prize went to the Leicester Mercury’s Lee Marlow, but she did go home with a highly commended in the category.

Said Jayne:  “It was a big honour for me, but of course I wish I could have won outright, if only to make it a better story.”

Jayne has taken voluntary redundancy under the Johnston Press-wide programme on offer to staff across the group since the autumn.

Starting out on the South Yorkshire Times based in Mexborough, she has fulfilled a number of roles at the YEP including a spell as a sub-editor.

She has won a string of awards over the course of her career and took the Regional Press Awards feature writer prize four years ago.

Jayne recalled one of her early jobs was to go to a comprehensive school to talk to one of the pupils who had just made a televised speech.

She said:  “His headmaster pulled him out of his English class and he stood in the corridor in his school uniform while I asked the questions. I remember asking if he had been nervous making the speech and he said ‘no, not really’.

“That was William Hague, former leader of the Tory Party and now our foreign secretary.

“It was before I went to university though so I was very young – I cannot stress enough how young I was!”

She added: “I am one of those lucky people who, if I had the opportunity to go back and choose my career again, would do exactly the same thing. My years at the YEP have been amazing, I have worked with some fantastic colleagues because journalists are almost always funny, smart people.

“And I have been allowed access into other lives in a way which seems incredible, and met people who are truly exceptional.

“Although the industry has become much tougher and there have been difficult times in recent years, and I did my fair share of lamenting about that, it never ceased to be a pleasure and a privilege.”

Jayne is the latest of a number of senior figures to have left the Yorkshire Post and YEP in recent months including YP arts editor Nick Ahad and YEP picture editor Andy Manning. She now plans to take on some freelance work.