LYNDA LEE POTTERNewspaper columnist Lynda Lee-Potter, known as the First Lady of Fleet Street, died on October 20, 2004, aged 69, after suffering from a brain tumour.She worked for the Daily Mail and that was where she forged her formidable reputation, first as a features writer, and then as a columnist from 1972 when she took over from another doyenne of Fleet Street, Jean Rook.She received an OBE in 1998 for her charity work and journalism, and the Mail held out hope she would return after her illness, carrying a note in its pages that she herself hoped to make a return to writing.Her influence was such that her three children, Charlie, Emma and Adam, all followed her into the profession.Lynda Lee-Potter was born Linda Higgerson on May 2, 1935, in Lancashire, where her family were miners.She won a place at grammar school after heeding her mother’s advice to better herself, then went on to stage school in London, aged 18, before starting a career in acting.When she met her husband, a medical student called Jeremy Lee-Potter, her time in England came to an end because soon after the marriage, they moved to Aden in the Middle East, where he served with the RAF.He too became a success in his field, and although retired at the time of her death, rose to the top of his profession as a specialist haematologist, became a member of the General Medical Council and had an active role on its Professional Conduct Committee.Lee-Potter took her own job while in Aden, writing a column for the Aden Chronicle, and it was this grounding that won her the job at the Daily Mail in 1967, where she began work as a feature writer.She took on Jean Rook’s role when the Mail’s original female columnist was poached by the Daily Express in 1972.Her reputation grew as a feisty – sometimes ferocious - opinionated , pithy and skilled columnist, and one whom readers actually bought the paper to read.She said of her work and style: “ I never worry about hurting people's feelings; if you have that anxiety, you shouldn't be doing this job.”She won numerous journalism awards during her glittering career, and her last was Columnist of the Year at the 2001 British Press Awards, her second success at the event.Her editor-in-chief Paul Dacre said of her work that it "made an incalculable contribution to the paper's success".He added: "Lynda's genius was in putting into simple words what millions of ordinary people were thinking - articulating, without talking down to them, not only their dreams but also their anger and frustration."
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