FORMER Lancashire Telegraph journalist Tony Carter has died aged 80.

A senior member of the editorial team for 40 years, he had fought a brave battle against cancer.

Mr Carter was assistant news editor at the then Lancashire Evening Telegraph (LET) on retirement in 2002.

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He died peacefully on November 7 at the home of his daughter Susan in Sutton Coldfield having fought for mesothelioma for two years.

Mr Carter started in journalism as a teenager on the weekly newspaper in his home town of Morecambe.

On his return from National Service on HMS Protector, he joined the Coventry Evening Telegraph and then became a reporter at the Blackburn head office of the LET.

Moving within the Thomson Regional Newspapers group, he was appointed to its London head office.

Returning to Blackburn in the 1960s, he became chief reporter and then roving features writer.

He became deputy news editor in the 1970s and, after a brief spell in magazines, returned in the 1980s to the paper’s newsdesk.

On retirement, Mr Carter tended his allotment in Morecambe and swam.

He moved to the Midlands after the 2011 death of wife Carmel and leaves Susan, three step-children, and eight grandchildren.

Former Lancashire Telegraph assistant editor Nick Nunn said: “Tony was a cornerstone of the papers operations for four decades.

“He was a fountain of knowledge about East Lancashire.”