Tributes are being paid to a former Lincolnshire Echo journalist who has died from cancer aged just 45.

Estrild Bennett, who worked at the Echo as Estrild Jones, had suffered from breast cancer since 2005.

She most recently worked as a teacher at a primary school near Lincoln.

Her father, Dr Ken Jones, said: “She had been a very fit person but she became increasingly unwell towards the end of 2004. She was diagnosed with incurable but not untreatable cancer and, although we knew she would not have a long life, we thought she’d have a good few years.

“When I took her for a routine injection she was her usual breezy self but when she came back home she started to feel unwell very quickly.

“She was such a bright person, even from a young age – she was a super little girl.”

After leaving school Estrild studied for a biochemistry degree at the University of Essex. She then trained as a journalist in Sheffield before working on the South Yorkshire Times.

She turned to teaching, training at the University of Sheffield and working in Leeds, teaching chemistry.

Then, after working for newspapers in the Bradford area, she had a period as public liaison manager with Bradford Health Authority before she came to the Lincolnshire Echo in the early 1990s.

She settled back in Lincolnshire where she married and had two daughters, and the family moved to Scothern where Estrild began working at the Ellison Boulters school, where she herself had once been a pupil.

Lincolnshire Echo business reporter and former colleague Glynis Fox paid tribute, saying Estrild was “one of the best – a true professional who really cared about her writing”.

Holdthefrontpage publisher Patrick Astill added: “I worked alongside Estrild in Lincoln and remember her exuberance and hearty laugh. She was great fun to have around and her compassion for her subject matter showed through in her writing.”