Subject: Daily Mirror columnist Sue Carroll dies after cancer battle

Colleagues of Daily Mirror columnist Sue Carroll have paid tribute to her following her death aged 58.

Mirror associate editor Kevin Maguire tweeted: "RIP Mirror Sue Carroll who died on Christmas Day after a long illness. The Queen of Columnists."

In March, Carroll, also a pundit on the Alan Titchmarsh Show, wrote a frank account of her fight against pancreatic cancer in the newspaper.

She said she was "lucky... to have a hand to hold and shoulder to cry on".

Carroll was cheered by fans when she made an emotional return to the Alan Titchmarsh Show in March, eight months after she was diagnosed with her illness.

She told viewers: "At times like this you think, 'what I could do with now is an angel'. You suddenly find you are surrounded by them - in the shape of your friends.

"You think you can count friends on one hand, but you have no idea how many people love you. It's been very touching."

'Warm and witty'

Carroll's column was a regular fixture in the Daily Mirror. She also wrote a blog for the title.

Writing under the banner "Warm, witty and straight to the point... Britain's best columnist", her column featured her thoughts on society and values, popular culture and celebrity.

In her piece about her cancer battle published in the newspaper in March she spoke of the moment she learned of her diagnosis.

"I suspect we all harbour fears of how we might react to being told that, in life's great lottery, we've got the disease neither money nor the best brains in medical science can guarantee to permanently eradicate. I always imagined I'd rant and scream: 'Why me?'," she wrote.

"Instead, I froze and stared at the floor as my doctor revealed the results of a CT scan. There were no ifs, buts or arguments - this technology is cruelly accurate."

The columnist also paid tribute to her family and friends and hit out at cuts to care services.

'Inspired and grateful'

"As I sat with close friends and my other half, trying as ever not to reveal his concern as we waited for the results of my most recent scan, I realised how lucky I was to have a hand to hold and a shoulder to cry on. Even in these enlightened times, people endure this disease in isolation," she wrote.

"It's a thought that makes me shudder. And shake with fury when I see so many essential carer services being scrapped on a daily basis."

She said she was "inspired and grateful to the dedicated and immensely professional staff" at London's Royal Marsden Hospital, where she was treated.