Former South Wales Argus journalist Tom Ellis has died suddenly at the age of 73.

He was returning to his Newport home after collecting a copy of the Argus from his local newsagent when he collapsed.

He was a hugely popular figure in the profession and admired for his accuracy, honesty, courage and dedication.

He is widely known in south-east Wales as the Argus local Government correspondent, a role in which he was fearless, yet respected by all parties in any controversy.

This was just a part of a long newspaper career which took in the hi-tech revolution that transformed newspaper production. When he retired from the Argus in 1993 he had completed 38 years with the paper.

Tom Ellis began his apprenticeship as a reporter on the weekly South Wales Gazette and Merthyr Express in the 1950s, when a young journalist had to be an all-rounder, even to the extent of manning the editor’s desk in his absence.

He took over the same north Gwent patch when he joined the Argus, covering North Gwent from Abertillery and then Ebbw Vale. He played an active part in the community there, becoming a member of the Scouts Council, the Brynmawr road safety committee, and vice-chairman of Aberbeeg branch of the Royal British Legion.

Later, he moved to the Newport office, where he became successively local government reporter, news editor and, finally, executive editor.

Tom Ellis always had the interests of journalists at heart as an active member of the National Union of Journalists. He was a past chairman of its Monmouthshire branch and a county delegate to national conferences in Edinburgh, Folkestone and Bournemouth.

On his retirement the then Argus editor Steve Hoselitz devoted a leading article to him, which said: “While some people may have mixed feelings about reporters, Tom spent his life demonstrating that the words ‘honourable’ and ‘journalist’ can be used in the same sentence”.

Argus editor Gerry Keighley said Tom Ellis was the kind of journalist who was both an ambassador for his newspaper and an unprejudiced seeker after the truth.

He said: “Journalists need to be courageous and totally objective but they also need to win the respect of those they have to expose or criticise.

“Tom Ellis achieved all that with distinction.”

Tom Ellis was a dedicated family man and leaves a wife, Doreen, three grown-up children and three grandchildren.

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