Diligent and professional, sharp-eyed and matter-of-fact in her style, The Canberra Times' former and long-serving social reporter Norma Allen passed away this week aged 93.
Recognised almost everywhere she went as the newspaper's hard-working About Town columnist, Ms Allen could work a room like no other, gathering snippets, pictures and stories, which were dutifully and scrupulously filed, and never a deadline missed.
Ms Allen was born and raised in Dapto, NSW, and began her journalism career in Wollongong.
She cut short her career when she moved to Canberra so her husband, Robert, could join the police force.
But when the couple later divorced she returned to journalism and began writing for The Chronicle, then a paper in competition with The Canberra Times.
Jack Waterford, then editor of The Canberra Times, brought her across to work on the city's most prominent title - a decision that proved to be well-judged. She was 60 when she joined the newspaper but brought boundless energy and enthusiasm to the role.
"Norma knew everybody in the town, she really enjoyed her role, and she was very good at it," Mr Waterford said.
"She was also old school in her style and quite scathing of younger journalists who didn't double-check the spelling of people's names or write their copy in the proper style.
"She really, really cared about getting her facts right. And she had this astute turn of phrase and slightly droll writing style containing nuances that I suspect only those certain people she wrote about who would fully understand."
Long after her retirement, the daily edition of The Canberra Times would land on her doorstep, be dutifully read, and any misspelling or typographical errors appropriately scolded.
Interviewed by this reporter between cups of tea and biscuits at her modest Kaleen home a few years ago, Ms Allen would only point out, but not open for perusal, the hand-written diaries she had kept down through the years recording the the social fabric of a burgeoning city. One could only speculate what was contained therein.
"If there was a sniff of a good story, you always followed it because that's what you did," Ms Allen said.
"But some of the stories I couldn't tell then, and still can't even tell today".
Eschewing computers which she described as "unreliable" and typing out all her copy, Ms Allen was a champion of the underdog and Canberra's charitable causes would always get a good run in her pages, often gaining a higher billing than a high society soiree.
Going to social events with Norma Allen, says former Canberra Times chief photographer Graham Tidy, was like trailing in the wake of a powerful tugboat as she worked the room, organised the subjects for her photographs and gathered up the stories.
"As a photographer, the great thing about working with Norma was that she was so organised," he said.
"When we got to an event she could sum up the situation pretty quickly, almost always knew what pictures she wanted, and would get all the names of the people as well. It made my job pretty easy, really."
Ms Allen rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous, from films star George Lazenby to media mogul John Fairfax, the late Bob Hawke and even the Queen.
One of her most memorable anecdotes was meeting Her Majesty on one of several royal visits to Canberra, and the controversial outcome that followed.
"The Queen was meeting people at the Hyatt and the Canberra hoi polloi were all lined up for an audience, as they do," Ms Allen said.
"Well, I snuck around the back of the security and into the line.
"So when the Queen got to me, she asked: 'What do you do?' I told her I was a reporter and the photographer snapped the photo of us together, quick smart.
"That's when security rushed up, grabbed the camera, opened up the back of it and exposed the film so we couldn't use it."
However, what the security guard didn't know was that the canny photographer had a back-up plan, in the shape of a second, much more discrete camera.
Photo evidence secured, exclusive copy duly filed, and another win for Norma Allen and The Canberra Times.
Ms Allen is survived by her three sons Mark, Jeff, Richard, and her daughter Lee, and seven grandchildren.
