A former journalist who worked as a columnist for a regional daily as part of a career spent mainly on Fleet Street has died at the age of 87.

Horace Crocker worked as a columnist for the Bath Chronicle, which is now a weekly paper, for three years from 1978 where he wrote its Day By Day column.

He started out in journalism as a reporter in Sheffield after studying at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, before moving to work for the Daily Mail in 1959 as a sub-editor.

Horace’s nephew Will Eaves has paid tribute to him following his death in a care home in Bath.

He told the Chronicle: “He will be remembered as a man of wit and principle, for whom the comedy of daily life was the source of an abiding belief in humanity.

“To his four nephews and nieces, he was the ideal uncle: funny, absurd, mischievous and indulgent.

“He was never too busy to listen, never passed judgement, and thought the best of everyone he met. He will be greatly missed.”

At the Daily Mail, Horace worked with the novelist and political commentator Ferdinand Mount and the satirist Auberon Waugh before he was accepted by Queens College, Oxford, to study philosophy, politics and economics in 1976.

In 1978, he joined the then Bath and West Evening Chronicle as a columnist and his battered Austin Mini car became a familiar sight at fetes, festivals and openings around the city.

Horace stayed at the paper for three years before returning to Fleet Street in 1981.

He had a wide range of interests which included Arsenal Football Club, the philosopher Wittgenstein and the films of Marilyn Monroe.