The funeral for former Gazette & Herald photographer Colin Kearley will take place at St James’s Church, Devizes, on Friday, July 26, at 2.30pm.

A private committal at West Wiltshire Crematorium in Semington will follow.

Mr Kearley died at his home in Church Walk, Devizes, on Saturday evening, surrounded by his family just nine days after being diagnosed with inoperable cancer.

Mr Kearley’s sons and grandchildren are in shock as his wife, Marian, had only told them the Monday before his death he had the disease.

Mrs Kearley said: “I suppose it is better than having him deteriorate slowly, but it is such a shock.

"He had been sleeping a lot and he was looking very unwell on Saturday. Eventually I called for an ambulance about 5pm, expecting them to take him into hospital.

“But when they arrived they said he was only going to live a few minutes more. I think it is the way he would have preferred to go. The paramedics were brilliant.”

Mr Kearley, who was 73, retired ten years ago as the Gazette’s chief photographer after joining the paper in 1963. He met his future wife when he arrived in the Gazette office in Devizes Market Place, where she was reception manager.

Mrs Kearley said: “His first impression of me, I heard later, was that I was very officious. I can’t remember my first impression of him. Not much, I think.”

Nevertheless, the couple clicked and they were married at St James’s Church, in 1967.

Mr Kearley often worked unsociable hours. Mrs Kearley said: “He would keep working until the job was finished so I never knew when he would be home.

“The kids and I got used to being on our own. It meant the times when Colin was with us was really special. The family joke was ‘have you been to Malmesbury today?’

“Before the days of mobile phones, he might have done a job in Malmesbury and come back to Devizes only to find he needed to go back to Malmesbury for another job.

“He had a peculiar sense of humour. It was very dry. People didn’t know if it was humour or not.

"I know it is a bit of cliché, but we really never had a row in all our 46 years of marriage.”

Mr Kearley won an award from the Guild of Editors for his portfolio of photos from a trip to Romania in the early 1990s shortly after the fall of the Ceaucescu regime.

Donatations in memory of Mr Kearley can be made to the British Tinnitus Association, Ground Floor, Unit 5, Acorn Business Park, Sheffield S8 0TB.