My friend Tricia Tyler, who has died suddenly aged 60, was a journalist and former editor of the Nursing Times who later worked as a lecturer and assessor in further education.
After a postgraduate course in publishing and production at the London College of Printing, she embarked on her journalistic career in 1988 as a feature writer at West Indian Digest, and the following year became co-editor of Caribbean Times, before moving in 1991 to Pulse, the medical magazine. In 1993 she became features editor of Nursing Times and was promoted to deputy editor in 1996 and then editor in 1998.
In 2002 she gave that up to teach young people about journalism as a lecturer at Harlow College, Essex. Trish continued to work as a freelance journalist and for two years was editor of a health employment magazine. From 2013 she was a project coordinator and assessor for Keyed Up Training, and from 2015 also for the Skills Company, both independent training providers in the Greater Manchester area. At the time of her death she was working as an assessor at Tameside College, Ashton-under-Lyne.
Born in Greenock, Renfrewshire, Patricia was the youngest of four children of Rachel (nee Skelling) and Daniel Reid, a tug boat chief engineer. Her father died when Trish was seven. Her mother married Hendry Niven, who helped to raise Trish and remained a key figure in her life. The family moved to Bridge of Weir, near Paisley, where they lived in a house built by Hendry called Dun Tannin’. He, his brother and father had all worked in the local leather factory.
Trish excelled at Park Mains high school, Erskine. When the family moved to Blackpool to open a B&B, Trish helped out in the kitchen and served at tables while studying for her A-levels at Blackpool Collegiate high school. She went on to study English at Sheffield Hallam, the first in her family to go to university, graduating in 1984.
Tricia met Chris Tyler when they both volunteered at the Schoolhouse alternative education project in Deptford, south London, in the 1980s. When Chris left to teach circus children at Roberts Brothers Super Circus, Trish journeyed far and wide to be with him at weekends. They married in 1994 and settled in Harlesden, north London. In 1997 they moved to Ware, Hertfordshire, and in 2006 to Stalybridge, Greater Manchester, where they raised their two sons, Euan and Rory.
Tricia loved the outdoors, was a keen walker and enjoyed tending her allotment. She was also a theatregoer, an avid reader and had a passion for Roman history. She loved arts and crafts, and painted a number of acrylics, including a triptych of the view from her home on Hough Hill. She volunteered for the Stalybridge Town Team, which runs projects to reinvigorate the area.
Trish had an enormous sense of fun and a fierce determination, never letting obstacles deflect her from any goal.
She is survived by Chris, Euan and Rory, by Hendry, and by her sisters, Rachel and Sandra.
