Family and friends says goodbye to Carol Barnes

Figures from the world of television news bade farewell to former ITN newscaster Carol Barnes at her funeral service.

Former colleagues Dermot Murnaghan, Alastair Stewart and Mark Webster gathered alongside family and friends for the funeral near Barnes' home in Brighton, East Sussex, today (Monday).

Barnes died at 63 at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, this month, days after suffering a stroke.

About 150 mourners, including Barnes' ex-colleague Nicholas Owen and her former partner Denis MacShane, were among mourners.

Mr MacShane paid tribute to Barnes, with whom he lived from 1975 to 1982, as a 'wonderful journalist and a wonderful mother'.

He said: "The word that summed her up to me was laughter. She was always finding something to laugh and joke at to get through a difficult situation."

Mr MacShane said Barnes typified the post-war 1968 generation who wanted to challenge authority and which produced a crop of outstanding journalists.

Mr MacShane added: "Others will remember her as a mother and as a friend but I think her great professional contribution was as a great professional from a generation that created great journalists."

He said she was a 'great mother' to Clare and James. Mr MacShane said how proud she was of their daughter Clare, who died aged 24 in a skydiving accident in Australia in 2004. "Her love was total and complete for her children," he said.

In an emotional tribute, Barnes' son, James, 26, said: "She made me care, she made me love, she opened the world to me."

The coffin was carried out to U2's With Or Without You.