You will always live in our hearts Florence

SHE died as she lived, in peace and quiet solicitude. Senior journalist Florence Wickremage who makes her last journey today will be sorely missed by all the staffers at the Daily News where she was almost a mother figure.

Florence is perhaps among the last of a vanishing breed of scribes who were moulded in the old school of journalism in those halcyon days which is still being spoken to with nostalgia.

She carried with her all the values and characteristics of that bygone era both in her mannerism and quality of work.

Quiet, unobtrusive and simple to a fault she nevertheless often came out with some juicy anecdotes of her times which went to relieve the tedium of a particularly heavy day at the news room.

Though bedevilled with personal tragedy in the last days of her life she bore all these setbacks with equanimity and fortitude and carried on with her outstanding contribution to journalism. - Rodney