Audrey Gray was just 16 and straight out of school when she got a job as a young reporter at the Accrington Observer.

She worked alongside fellow reporter Irvine Hunt who has penned a book detailing his memories of his time at the paper during the 1950s.

She says reading Irvine’s book brought back happy memories of the job that helped launch her career.

Audrey, whose married name is Eyton, also fondly remembers her time at the Observer.

She said: “I did enjoy it but my goodness they worked us – we might do three evenings a week and Saturdays as well.

“I would have gone and dug coal if they asked me to as well though.

“We had to go to amateur dramatics in the evenings as well.

“And, as I think Irvine wrote in his book, you had to call at undertakers and call at people’s houses in your district who’d died to get the details and in those days they’d say would you like to come and see him.

“I remember seeing three dead people in one morning once.”

After three years at the Observer, Audrey moved to London where she worked for Woman magazine and later became its beauty editor where she became interested in dieting before giving up work to have children.

She said: “My husband and I started what was the first magazine entirely devoted to dieting and slimming – there was no such thing then though there's quite a few now.

“No one imagined you could have a magazine just on slimming generally.

“It was lots of things about food and calories and exercise whereas there’s several now.

“We worked ourselves into the ground because we couldn’t afford staff. It had to succeed for us financially, we owed the printers about £80,000 which was a lot in those days.

“It did succeed though and after a year we were able to employ people, ” said Audrey who is originally from Blackburn.

Slimming magazine first hit the shelves in 1970 and Audrey also founded the successful Ragdale Hall Health Farm in Leicestershire. She founded several slimming clubs throughout the decade and sold them in 1980.

Audrey then found fame when she penned The F-Plan Diet in 1982 which became an instant best-seller.

She explained: “People really didn’t understand much about dietary fibre.

“It was the first British diet to be a big best-seller and sold four million copies.

“I toured the world. It was very successful in America and Australia and New Zealand – there were a lot of overseas editions.

“It was fun but again incredibly hard work.

“You might do 10 interviews in a day while you were touring with perhaps a radio show at 6 in the morning then television and interviews and then I’d be staggering on to a plane at midnight off to the next place.”

After retiring from the world of nutrition, Audrey moved to Canterbury where she has lived ever since. Through her late son she developed a keen interest in animal welfare and, in 1991, founded The Matthew Eyton Animal Welfare Trust.

She said: “I’m very committed to animals – factory farming is something I absolutely hate.”

Audrey penned The Tied Food Guide, investigating animal slaughter methods and offering concerned consumers humane choices.

She made educational videos showing the intellect of pigs with Cambridge and Bristol Universities, demonstrating how they can sit to order like dogs.

She said: “I ended up taking in four large pink pigs, one of them called Babe.

“Joanna Lumley is very committed to animals and became a friend. I had Babe trained so Joanna could take her to Parliament to raise the issue of animal welfare.

“We took her to puppy training classes – she had a lovely life and came and joined the one I already had, Victoria.

“One way or another I ended up collecting these four large pigs.

“They could recognise my car when I drove up the lane and distinguish between the sound of my car and any other car.

“In many ways pigs are more intelligent than dogs.”

Audrey is now 77 and still lives by the river in Canterbury.