Comedy star dies aged 48

Comedian Linda Smith was still making jokes on her deathbed, friends said today.

The 48-year-old, one of the best-loved and funniest voices on Radio 4 as well as a regular TV panellist, died after a four-year battle with ovarian cancer.

Fellow comedians said today that she maintained her sense of humour despite the pain of the disease.

Ms Smith died at her east London home on Monday night, surrounded by close friends, her partner Warren Lakin, her sister and her two nephews.

Hattie Hayridge, who knew her for 20 years, said: "She didn't want to be a cancer victim and didn't want to make a career out of having cancer so she only told close friends. To a lot of people her death will be a really big shock because they didn't know she was ill. But right up until the last day she was still making quips."

Jeremy Hardy, a close friend and fellow panellist on Radio 4's News Quiz, where she was the first female team captain, said: "Linda wanted as few people as possible to know about her illness. Her attitude was that she didn't want to give in to it. She was going on to bigger and better things and becoming more popular by the day. She hated the cancer and loved life and had no intention of dying. Even on Monday, when she was in a coma, she was in no hurry to go.

"Although we had been friends for years my fondest memories are from the last few months. To be with somebody who is dying and yet is so incredibly strong and brave and cheerful and welcoming is very life-enhancing. She knew she was going to die and still made me laugh. I will always, always treasure that." Voted the wittiest person alive by Radio 4 listeners in 2002, she made frequent appearances on radio shows Just A Minute and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, as well as TV shows Have I Got News For You, Room 101 and Mock The Week.

Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer called her "a Radio 4 giant". He said: "She was incredibly funny. She generated an energy and warmth in every programme she ever did that made her fellow comedians and millions of listeners love her. It's a terrible loss."

The daughter of a railway track worker, Smith grew up in Erith, south-east London.

Encyclopaedic in her enthusiasms, she had an intense love of literature and language as well as cinema, cookery-and gardening. After studying English and drama at Sheffield University she joined a theatre touring company in 1983 before launching herself on the comedy circuit. A dedicated socialist, she did stand-up at miners' strike benefits and won the Hackney Empire New Act of the Year award in 1987.

She broke into radio on the Radio 5 topical satire The Treatment, graduating from there to write two series of A Brief History Of Time Wasting.

Chris Neill, the producer who signed her up for Just A Minute, said: "There was no one quite like her. She had this amazing, savage wit but was always kind, if that oxymoron exists. One of the great tragedies is that her illness coincided with her coming into her own."