A campaigning journalist described as a “champion” for her patch has died aged 84.

Tributes have been paid to Jean Jacques, former woman’s page editor at the Northern Daily Mail, the forerunner to the Hartlepool Mail.

Jean, left, began her career in the Mail’s advertising department, but moved to Keighley, in Yorkshire, to take up her first journalism job.

She later returned to Hartlepool where she served as a reporter as well as taking responsiblity for the Mail’s woman’s page.

An obituary in the Mail reads: “She was a household name in town, writing first under the pseudonym Winifred West and later under her married name above the column ‘Jean Jacques writes…’.

“Among the many local issues she reported on in the 1960s and 1970s, her newspaper campaign for Hartlepool to set up its own open air market, so shoppers did not have to go out of town, led to change.

“Jean, nee Roberton, first campaigned in 1978 to change the opening hours of the indoor market. Stalls used to close in the lunch hour and all day on Wednesdays.

“It led to the indoor market and other shops adopting a six-day week. Hartlepool Council eventually agreed to allow a Thursday open air market, which still continues.”

Jean died peacefully with husband Richard, former chief sub-editor of the Mail, and daughters Janette and Judith at her bedside.

Her funeral was held on 4 August.