Former Newcastle Evening Chronicle women’s editor and columnist Alison Blair has died.

The 51-year-old had spent many years at the Chronicle, training as a reporter at the Newcastle Chronicle and Journal training centre.

During her time there she became one of the region’s best-known journalists, and her outspoken weekly column often caused an outcry and it was even known for protesters to gather at the paper’s offices.

Alison was as adept at writing about fashion and make-up as hard-hitting investigations, and she once dared to suggest that pensioners should not be given free travel, which met with a barrage of protests.

Avril Deane, who was women’s editor of Chronicle sister title The Journal during Alison’s time there, said: “Alison was a genuinely sweet person at heart who loved to antagonise her readers with the views that made her weekly column in the Chronicle such compulsive reading.

“The more the letters flooded in, the more she relished it, revelling in her notoriety and yet insisting she hadn’t meant to offend anyone.

“She was a great campaigner too, winning major accolades for various Chronicle health campaigns – including one in the early 1990s, in association with Tommee Tippee, in which vast numbers of North East parents were persuaded by her words to have their babies inoculated.”

Alison left the Chronicle in the early 1990s to take up a post at a housing firm and died at her home in Gosforth, Newcastle.

She is survived by husband Gary Taylor and children Christopher, Rowann and Holly.

Her funeral has been held at Newcastle Crematorium. Do you have a story about the regional press?
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