A newsdesk stalwart described as one of the Welsh ‘tafia’ who helped launch a pioneering evening newspaper in the 1960s has died suddenly.

Ralph Slater, who was in his 70s, was a key member of a four-strong team transferred from the South Wales Echo and Western Mail to launch the Thomson Organisation’s award-winning Evening Echo and Evening Post at Hemel Hempstead in 1967.

Under Echo editor Ivor Lewis, they helped win a string of national awards as the papers emerged as trailblazers in the age of web offset printing and computerised typesetting.