Carole Taylor, news editor of the Dursley-based Gazette series in Gloucestershire, is retiring after 44 years as a journalist.

Carole started her career in newspapers in 1961, leaving school at 16 to join the Worthing Gazette in West Sussex as a trainee reporter.

After completing three years of indentures and covering courts, councils and the numerous events that make up life on a weekly newspaper, she became the woman's page editor.

In 1966 Carole moved to Gloucestershire with husband Ray, settling in Stroud where sons Paul and Adrian were born. Third son James arrived in 1982.

After freelancing while the older boys were small, Carole (pictured) joined the Stroud News and Journal in 1973, first as a reporter and sub-editor and then as news editor.

Apart from short spells with the Gloucester Citizen and the Gloucestershire Echo, Carole spent most of her working life with the former Bailey Newspaper Group in Stroud, Cirencester and Dursley.

She was production editor in Dursley when the group was sold in 1998 and moved in that role to the new regional headquarters in Newport.

But daily travel to Wales took its toll and a year later, Carole returned to Gloucestershire. She became news editor of the Gazette in 2000.

Carole said: "I have thoroughly enjoyed my life in newspapers.

"Given the chance, I would do it all over again. But I have decided to retire now while I am still enjoying it and my colleagues are not too fed up with me."

Carole leaves the Gazette on Friday. Her successor will be Ali Dent, who has been working as a senior reporter for the Gazette's Yate and Chipping Sodbury edition.