A regional journalist who went on to work for newspapers around the world has died aged 69.

Tributes have been paid to Ewen Campbell, who worked for the Whitley Bay Guardian and Northern Echo before moving to the nationals and beyond.

During his career, Ewen, pictured, went on to hold senior roles at the South China Morning Post, New Zealand Herald and Asia Times, among other titles.

Former colleague Steve Wolstencroft has led tributes to a journalist whose “larger-than-life character and side-splitting humour would single him out and complement an array of journalistic skills that would endear him to his colleagues”.

Steve said: “I worked with Ewen at the North Press, The Northern Echo and the Daily Star.

“There aren’t many people in the sometimes-backstabbing world of newspapers who never have a bad word said about them. Ewen was one of them.

“He was the bloke you’d want to have beside you in the office and next to you at the bar in the pub. He was a great lad.”

Ewen began his career on the Guardian, his hometown paper, as a junior reporter before joining the Echo as a news sub-editor in the early 1970s.

He moved to Manchester in 1979 to join the newly-launched Daily Star on the sports desk as a sub-editor, but by the mid-1908s had begun his international career with the South China Morning Post.

Upon arrival, he found the sports editor role he had been promised had been taken, but he later moved into the post after working in the Hong Kong-based title’s news operation.

Ewen was subsequently recruited as production editor for the launch of the Oriental Press Group-owned Eastern Express in 1994, working closely with editor Steve Vines and managing editor Jon Marsh.

Jon said: “The launch deadline was very tight and the new technology shaky. Ewen was the driving force who kept everyone going as publication day loomed.

“His relentless energy and extraordinary ability to get people to work together no matter what pulled us through.

“He was the glue. Without Ewen, Eastern Express would never have met that deadline. He was a true force of nature and a wonderful friend and colleague.”

Ewen then moved to Bangkok to help launch the Asia Times in 1995 and had a spell as sports editor at the New Zealand Herald, in Auckland, before returning to Hong Kong in the early 2000s.

There, he worked for publications such as iMail and the satirical magazine Spike before re-joining the Morning Post.

At the time of his departure in 2012, he was its night editor.

Ewen later branched out into the world of corporate communications and helped to revive the online version of Asia Times as an editorial consultant.

Trisha Harbord, a close friend and Daily Star colleague, said: “Ewen was a gifted, intelligent and knowledgeable writer – sport, news, business – he did them all.

“He was also a superb storyteller and I can see him now standing at a bar in Ancoats with everyone around him howling with laughter. He was a one-off, a true star.”

Former colleague Gordon Watts, who worked with him in the UK, Hong Kong and Thailand, added: “He was always a newspaper man and a brilliant one at that. He was also one of life’s good guys.”

David Harbord, a former Daily Star colleague, was friends with Ewen for 45 years and met up with Ewen in Asia just a few weeks ago.

He said: “He was huge fun to be around and enriched so many lives.

“I thought of him not just as a friend, but a brother.”

Ewen died from cancer in Hong Kong last Tuesday.

He is survived by his partner Teri, daughters Sarah and Molly, son Hamish and grandchildren Malcolm and Edie.