A former regional press reporter who went on to broadcasting fame has died aged 68.

Veteran BBC broadcaster Patrick Hannan, who died on Saturday, began his career in the 1960s, serving as industrial editor of the Western Mail.

He joined BBC Radio Wales in 1970 before finding a wider audience on BBC Radio 4, presenting the political and discussion programmes, Out of Order and Tea Junction.

He was also part of the Welsh team in the popular Round Britain Quiz.

Former controller of BBC Wales and close friend Geraint Talfan Davies said: “Although he would have hated the term, he was the doyen of Welsh journalists.

“He cast a sharp and sardonic eye over Welsh affairs for some decades, always caring passionately for the independence of his profession or, as he always called it, his trade.”

Mark Damazer, the controller of Radio 4, said: “Patrick Hannan was one of the best ever contestants in Round Britain Quiz – probably the most intellectually demanding of all the BBC’s quizzes.

“He was a brilliant lateral thinker – formidably clever and formidably knowledgeable over a huge range of topics. His display of erudition was flavoured with wit, charm and modesty.”

The son of an Irish doctor who migrated to Wales in the 1930s, Mr Hannon was awarded an MBE in 1994 for services to broadcasting.

Also an accomplished author, his last book, A Useful Fiction: Adventures in British Democracy, was published earlier this year.

More tributes to Patrick Hannan can be found on his Lasting
Tribute page.