Tributes have been paid to a former regional newspaper women’s editor who died shortly before Christmas at the age of 91.

Pat Latham, who worked for the Birmingham Post and Mail in the 1940s, died after a long illness on 20 December and her funeral took place on Tuesday.

Originally joining the paper as the editor’s secretary, she was made women’s editor and went on to have a long career in journalism.

After freelancing as a fashion journalist for a variety of national news outlets she eventually became the PR officer for West End store Liberty.

Delivering the eulogy at her funeral, family friend Colin Bailey described her as a “very impressive and capable professional lady” whose vitality, energy and irrepressible sense of humour had helped her “make her way in a man’s world.”

She was also a long-standing and active member of the Chartered Institute of Journalists, serving at chairman of its London region as well as long periods on its council

Pat, pictured above, trained as a secretary and during the War worked at the HQ of the British Red Cross in Berkshire, before moving into hospital administration in the county.

She moved back to the Midlands to work at Walsall General Hospital before being appointed secretary to the editor of the Birmingham Post and Mail, who eventually offered her the job of women’s editor.

After the death of her husband in 1979. Pat became engaged to a widowed retired Royal Navy commander, but he died the day before their wedding.

Away from work, Pat was active in local affairs and successfully campaigned for a bypass to take heavy lorries away from the narrow road on which her home, Forge Cottage, stood.