After 16 years at the helm of the Mercury, editor Anne Edwards is to retire at the end of May.

She retires one month short of 48 years full-time in the newspaper industry, and is currently also editor of the Lowestoft Journal and Beccles & Bungay Journal, and a news editor on the Eastern Daily Press and Norwich Evening News.

Anne fell into journalism at the age of 17 when she heard a junior reporter’s job was going at her home town weekly newspaper, the Melton Mowbray Times in 1970.

She was 17 years at the Times and during that time, in 1972, qualified as a referee with the Leicestershire and Rutland County FA, the first woman to do so in the county.

In 1987 she joined Post Newspapers in Northamptonshire as editor of four titles, went on to become group editor – and following redundancy joined the Peterborough Evening Telegraph staying for four years before moving to become night editor/chief sub editor at the Newcastle Journal.

There followed several roles, including deputy editor, and a short while as acting editor “until I saw the dream job to take me to retirement – editor of the Great Yarmouth Mercury – a job at the seaside, where we had holidayed when I was a child!”

She said: “The last 16 years in Yarmouth have been some of my happiest.

“I have met so many lovely people and been welcomed at many events all over the borough. I will continue to take a great interest in the happenings locally – in a place which has become my adopted ‘home town’. I particularly enjoyed attending the Town Hall counts at local elections, even though it meant staying alert and focused until the early hours of the next morning!”

Anne added: “One of my proudest moments was being made a Fellow of the University of Suffolk for my links with its campus in Great Yarmouth (East Coast College), and this award for someone who hadn’t been to university. Every year I am so proud of these students who are taking on new challenges and succeeding.”

Anne, 65, said: “I wish the Mercury well, and my successor, who has yet to be confirmed.”

Anne is a founding member of the Civic Society of Great Yarmouth and also a Trustee of Age Connected and the Acorn Centre and says she is sure she will remain busy.