COLLEAGUES, friends and former Swindon journalists gathered to say farewell to ‘Mrs Adver’ Pauline Leighton who has left the newspaper after 43 years unbroken service and unflinching loyalty.

Pauline was the Adver’s longest serving journalist, having joined straight from school while she leaves the newspaper as a grandmother.

Pauline, who has two children, has always maintained: “The Adver is my third child.”

Her career at the newspaper’s Victoria Road offices has spanned five decades and seen her progress from a teenage trainee reporter to managing editor.

Over the years she has shrugged off advice from editors and senior journalists to “move on” in order to further her career. But she is a Swindon girl who loves the newspaper and the town and never lived further than half-a-mile from the office.

She has worked for 10 editors and has been at forefront - designing front pages and writing the ‘splash’ headlines - of every major story that the Advertiser has covered for well over a quarter of a century.

“The Swindon Advertiser is in my blood,” she said.

Now living in Malta, Tom Welch, a former managing director of Newsquest Wiltshire said: “Pauline Leighton is an accomplished newspaperwoman. She has an instinctive, journalistic sense with an integrity so rarely found today.

“I recall an afternoon in the Nineties when Pauline came to my office to update me on a big local story. There was a major development and Pauline told me she wanted to publish a special, late night edition - not a decision taken lightly then or now.

“She took me through the pages currently being prepared and said she would stand by her decision on the extra edition.

“That edition of the Adver was published and sold out.

“Pauline has knowledge and experience which in my book equals sound judgement. I wish her well and hope the community of Swindon can continue to benefit from her skills, whatever she decides to do from now on.”

In a memo to staff about Pauline’s departure, current Newsquest Wiltshire managing director Chris Moore said: “I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank Pauline for her contribution to the company and I hope you will join me in wishing Pauline every success in the future.”

Having delivered the paper since she was 13, Pauline Kelly joined the five editions-a-day Swindon Evening Advertiser directly from St Joseph’s Catholic School at 18 in 1973.

At the time it was a heavily male-dominated industry populated by men with pipes and pencil sharpeners “who seemed years and years older than me.”

Her early career saw her cover ‘soft’ stories from the disco dancing craze and bell ringing to roller skating and wind surfing – and one occasion she was called upon to enter a circus lion’s den.

She gradually gained the respect of older colleagues and was appointed the newspaper’s first female features editor before becoming news editor, the Adver’s first woman deputy editor, acting editor and for a spell temporary sports editor.

She has been central to many successful Advertiser campaigns which have seen thousands of pounds raised for the Prospect Hospice, Macmillan Cancer Support and bringing a dialysis unit to Swindon so patients no longer had to make gruelling journeys to Oxford for treatment.

Crucial to Pauline’s later years at the Adver have been the nurture, wellbeing and working conditions of young journalists starting out their careers in Swindon.

Her husband, Barry Leighton, was an Advertiser reporter in the late Seventies and Eighties. They have two children Conor and Erin and an 11-month old grandson Arlen.

Pauline, whose leaving bash was at Longs Bar in Victoria Road on Thursday, now plans to “take it easy for a while".