TV sitcom writer and animal rights activist Carla Lane has died in a Merseyside nursing home at the age of 87.
Ms Lane who created hit 1980s Liverpool sitcom Bread, also wrote Butterflies and co-wrote The Liver Birds.
Bread, which focused on the extended Boswell family, was on TV screens for seven series between 1986 and 1991.
Liverpudlian Ms Lane, who was born Romana Barrack, also ran an animal sanctuary in Sussex where she cared for about 1000 animals, until she was forced to give it up in 2009.
She was awarded an OBE in 1989, but returned it in protest after a CBE was awarded to the managing director of Huntingdon Life Sciences, a contract animal testing laboratory.
Ms Lane was a lifelong vegetarian, and one of her closest friends was the late Linda McCartney, a fellow animal rights campaigner.
Ms McCartney, along with then husband Paul was once a neighbour to Ms Lane.
Hundreds have taken to Twitter to pay tribute to the comedy writer.
Piers Morgan wrote: "RIP Carla Lane, who made us all laugh."
While Twitter user Janet Borland said: "#RIP Carla Lane writer of so many comedies I grew up watching, Liver Birds, Bread & my favourite Butterflies."