An award-winning former regional daily journalist turned novelist has died aged 66.

Tributes have been paid to Nicola Barry, pictured left, who worked at the Edinburgh Evening News and won 27 press awards over the course of her career.

Nicola served as a columnist, features writer and social affairs commentator for the Evening News, and also wrote for The Scotsman and Sunday Express.

She published her memoirs ‘Mother’s Ruin’ ten years ago telling of her troubled childhood living with an alcoholic mother, and her first novel ‘Fat? So!’ came out in 2014.

Former Evening News editor John McLellan said: “Nicola was a one-off, not a traditional reporter but a writer and interviewer of great sensitivity, and without question one of the best writers the Evening News ever employed.

“Her sympathetic approach to her subjects meant she was able to tackle some very difficult stories with empathy and humanity. I saw her relatively recently and I’m very shocked and saddened by her untimely passing.”

Creative writing tutor Professor Willy Maley said: “Nicola’s big-hearted personality, infectious smile and irrepressible humour hid the fact that she had had a hard time growing up, and as a young woman in a man’s newspaper world she’d had to deal with all kinds of demons, some of them in shirts and ties.

“She was a fantastic friend, not just a former student, and one of those people whom the phrase ‘force of nature’ fits like a glove. She was also a real force for good in a world increasingly full of demons.”

Nicola is survived by her husband, Alastair Murray, and his daughters, Jane and Hazel.

Her funeral will take place at Warriston Crematorium, in Edinburgh, at 1pm next Tuesday, followed by a Service of Thanksgiving in Colinton Parish Church at 2.15pm.