A “down to earth” who held senior positions at regional daily titles in both Oxford and Cambridge has died aged 86.

Tributes have been paid to Eddie Duller, who edited the Oxford Mail from 1985 until 1994.

Eddie, pictured, also held senior positions at the Cambridge News, having been brought in as news editor by Keith Whetstone, who edited the paper from 1964 to 1970.

He died in hospital in Oxford on 28 September, where he had been for several months following a fall.

John Alexander, who served as chief reporter at the News while Eddie was running the newsdesk, told HTFP: “He was a very compassionate and caring chap, although he gave the young reporters in Cambridge the runaround.

“He was very tough and really did lick that newsroom into shape.”

Eddie began his career on the Hunts Post and also spent some time at the Bath office of the Bristol Post before gaining his first editorship on the Uxbridge Gazette.

Barbara Fisher, who worked with Eddie in Uxbridge, said: “I was a teacher when I first met Eddie in the 1980s, and he asked me to write a schools’ page for the Uxbridge Gazette series of newspapers.

“It was unusual then to recruit, and pay, anyone outside the trained pool of journalists, but he thought that using local knowledge in community news would benefit the paper and boost newspaper sales.

“I’ll always be grateful to him for giving me the chance that eventually resulted in a 20-year career as a full-time journalist.

“Eddie always thought outside the box, a phrase he would have hated, as he wasn’t impressed by trendy jargon.

“I found him down to earth, kind, and with a real sense of fun. He welcomed new projects and ideas and was very astute, seeing the advantages of the new technology early on.”

After retiring from the Mail, Eddie returned to Uxbridge to take on a consultant’s position, responsible for press and marketing for Uxbridge College.

Barbara added: “I was then deputy news editor and loved working with him again, this time on the Local Heroes awards which were sponsored by the college. We caught up over some enjoyable lunches in Denham, Eddie often finishing with his trademark cigar.”

Eddie became chairman of health watchdog Healthwatch Oxfordshire in 2015 and was also known for his charity work.

In recent years he finished a book, Flying High: A Pilot’s Story, which had started out as an autobiography about a fledgling pilot in South Africa. When the author Leonard de Bruyn died at the age of 86, Eddie took over from the notes he left behind.

Rosalind Pearce, executive director of Healthwatch Oxfordshire, told the Mail: “Eddie as chair of Healthwatch Oxfordshire was passionate about how we and the health and care authorities communicated with people – plain English was his motto.

“Under his guidance Healthwatch Oxfordshire grew into being an organisation that listened to people and made sure they were heard by those organisations that commission and deliver health and care services in Oxfordshire.”