TRIBUTES have been paid to a former editor of the Gazette described by a legendary press chief as the "finest all round journalist" he had ever known.

Robert 'Bob' House died from emphysema on Sunday, January 9, at home with his family, aged 83.

Mr House edited the Tiverton Gazette, at the paper's former office in Bampton Street between 1979 and 1991.

During more than 40 years in the newspaper trade, Mr House interviewed some notable figures, including the Duke of Edinburgh and Lawrence Olivier.

Born in High Wycombe in 1927, he attended High Wycombe Grammar School. Despite encouragement from his headmaster to study at Oxford, he declined and chose instead to become a tape boy on the Communist publication the Daily Worker.

From there he progressed to becoming a reporter on the Bucks Free Press and the Hayes Chronicle. He joined the RAF and after serving in the Far East from 1946 to 1948, he joined the Slough Observer.

He had three separate spells on the paper under the tutelage of legendary editor Lesley Tunks, who described him as the "finest all round journalist I have ever known."

Like many other reporters from the Slough newsroom he progressed to Fleet Street, first to the Morning Advertiser and then the Daily Mirror. He became editor of the Daily Mirror house magazine STET, but when he and his wife Esther had their third child, he returned to Slough as assistant editor in order to see more of the children.

In 1979, the family moved to Devon, having spent the previous seven years on the Lincolnshire Echo. The Gazette had just gone tabloid and had a circulation of 8,000 upon his arrival. By the time he retired 12 years later, he had created a fourth edition – the Culm Valley Gazette – and circulation had risen to 13,000.

Esther House said her husband had been a "workaholic", who could "cut on the stone" if necessary and used to send copy to Exeter by bus in the pre-electronic era.

For those starting out in the profession, Mr House was keen to pass on the knowledge he had gained. Mrs House recalled one formative occasion which informed his view of the details which all journalists needed to obtain: "He went to a fete once as a young reporter and there was someone interesting there who he produced a very good write up about, but his report omitted the name of the person he had spoken to and so the editor sent him all the way back to the fete to get the name. Bob would cite this to a young reporter and tell them how important it was to get 'all the names and all the details' in the first instance."

She added: "If he saw someone with obvious flair, he would give them an opportunity to prove themselves."

Richard Best, who began his career in journalism on the Gazette, later serving as its editor, was one recipient of this endorsement. He said: "I started off as a copy taker, inputting reports and he offered me a job as a reporter as he must have spotted some potential in me. If you got asked to do a particular piece by the editor, you would put your all into making it a good piece to prove his trust had not been misplaced."

Richard, who now edits the West Briton title in Cornwall, added: "He was a proper old fashioned editor. As trainees, we called him Mr House, we might venture to call him 'Bob' in the pub but the rest of the time it was very formal and as young reporters we were in awe of him."

Another Gazette colleague Pat Keenor said: "He was one of nature's gentlemen; quiet and unassuming but with a strong sense of right and wrong.

"He was dedicated to the Gazette, working hard to uphold its integrity within the community and seeing it through many changes. On a personal level, he was always supportive and I have many happy memories of my time at the Gazette with Bob as editor."

Veteran councillor Cllr Mary Turner said: "He was a good man and a good editor. I didn't know him all that well but you knew as long as someone like Mr House was there, it was going to be a good newspaper and you could trust what you read in the Gazette."

He leaves a wife and two daughters, as his son Robert had deceased him, plus nine grandchildren.

A requiem mass will be held at St James' Catholic Church, Old Road, Tiverton, next Monday, January 24, at 11.30am, followed by interment at Halberton Cemetery.

The collection at the service will be for Smile Train, a charity providing surgery for children in the developing world with cleft lips or cleft palates.