A former regional journalist who covered the investiture of Prince Charles more than 50 years ago has died aged 78.

Tributes have been paid to Ioan Roberts, pictured, who worked on Welsh language weekly Y Cymro.

Ioan had joined Y Cymro after working as a civil engineer, and three months into the job reported on the Prince of Wales being crowned by the Queen on 1 July 1969.

He was also editor of Y Dydd on HTV, a news broadcaster for Radio Cymru and he produced programmes for S4C.

As a member of Plaid Cymru , he also edited the paper Y Ddraig Goch for the party.

More recently, he edited the book “Wales – The First and Final Colony” by Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price.

Mr Price said: “All the Plaid family are saddened to hear of the death of the late Ioan Roberts. Ioan made a generous contribution to the life of the nation in many areas.

“He will be especially remembered for his invaluable contribution to Welsh language journalism and publishing in particular.

“In fact, I had the privilege of personally benefiting from Ioan’s expertise and guidance in working with him as editor of the volume Wales – The First and Final Colony, published last year.

“He was kind, committed, humble. The national movement and the whole of Wales are so much poorer without him. On behalf of Plaid, I would like to extend my condolences to his family and friends at this very difficult time.”

Ioan, who lived in Pwllheli, is survived by wife Alwena and two children.