A regional daily news editor who interviewed The Beatles and Engelbert Humperdinck has died aged 73.

Tributes have been paid to Irene Rowe, who spent many years with Dundee daily The Courier.

Irene, pictured, began her career as reporter on The Courier as a reporter in the early 1960s.

She later worked her way through the ranks and eventually became news editor, but her career was cut short due to a major brain operation.

According to an obituary in The Courier, family and friends described Irene as “quick-witted and good-natured and with an answer for everything.”

She died on 4 March and her funeral was held at Dundee Crematorium yesterday.  She is survived by her brother Bruce, a niece and two nephews.

Among the figures she met and interviewed were Engelbert Humperdinck as well as The Beatles — who she interviewed before their 1963 performance at Dundee’s Caird Hall.

The Courier’s obituary said that, aside from news, some of her greatest loves in life were “cats, coffee, and cigarettes.”