Retired newspaper editor Roy Maddison has died, aged 69, following a heart attack.

The former journalist had edited several newspapers, including the Shields & Wallsend Weekly News, the Northumberland Gazette and The Whitehaven News.

Paying tribute, current Whitehaven News editor Colin Edgar said: “Roy was a news hound to his fingertips, and once wrote of the time he landed a scoop with Bill Shankly by giving him a lift in his car, of the travails of filing copy from the Falklands and the excitement of tracking down a good story.

“Even in retirement, the smell of the ink never left his nostrils.

“Only the other day he was back in The Whitehaven News office to praise us for a story we’d done and suggesting a follow-up with a contact he knew.

“That follow-up story is in this week’s edition. I couldn’t think of a more fitting tribute.”

Roy was born in West Hartlepool and began his career as compositor on the Northern Daily Mail before becoming a reporter and sports editor there.

He then joined the Journal in Newcastle as a sub-editor and went on to work for The Sun in Manchester and The Daily Sketch in London, interviewing a variety of stars such as Eric Morecambe and Tommy Steele.

He returned to the North East in 1971, joining the Evening Gazette in Middlesbrough, and in 1978 he took up his first editorship at the Shields & Wallsend Weekly News.

Roy also went on to edit the Northumberland Gazette, Morpeth Gazette and launch a free sheet in Berwick-upon-Tweed, before becoming director of Cumbrian Newspapers and editor of The Whitehaven News in 1987, where he stayed until retirement in 1996.

His former deputy, Terry Harrison, said: “He was never frightened to get stuck in to the big stories that some might shy away from. He was a man that thrived on controversy.

“Yet he was a genial and likeable fellow with a wide circle of friends.”

Roy was president of the Guild of British Newspaper Editors in 1993 and was an honorary member of its successor, the Society of Editors.

He also lectured in journalism for a short while at the Cumbria College of Art and Design in Carlisle, now the Cumbria Institute.

His funeral service will be held in the Cumbrian village of St Bees, near Whitehaven, on Friday, July 22.