She used newspaper and magazine articles and television appearances to remind young girls and women of their greater vulnerability to lung cancer through smoking, and the medical profession "that 'hope' is not a four-letter word". She also wrote a book, What Can I Do To Help?, published the day before she died (she donated her royalties to Macmillan Cancer Relief), aimed at people living with or around cancer patients. It is a sensible, illuminating guide of dos and don'ts about how to make the patient's life better, and a useful source of practical information on the disease and help available.Journalist as she was to the core, the most idiosyncratic aspect of Hutton's response to her illness was the creation of a web diary for her friends. She wrote virtually every day, with great frankness and humour, about her illness and her family life, and readers were able to enter their comments. She kept her blog up to date until the week of her death.People of a reserved nature might judge the idea narcissistic, but they would be wrong. It was at least as helpful for her friends as it must have been for her, and there is not one moment of self-pity in seven months of her blogs. It is impossible to keep in frequent touch with scores of people over the phone, and terminal illness can easily create barriers among friends, however close, if much remains unsaid.

The blog became the web equivalent of a circle of friends around a camp fire, finding comfort and refuge against the encircling darkness. Many bloggers have said, on the final blog after her death, that Deborah Hutton's openness has changed their perception of how to face their own mortality.Although visibly wasting during her last three months, Hutton maintained her extraordinary energy until the very end "What next?" I asked her after she finished her book. "I want to campaign for the ring-fencing of some money from tobacco duty to go into lung cancer research. It is disgraceful that the Government collects enormous sums from the main cause of the illness, but has no obligation to put it back into finding a cure."Sadly, this was not to be in her lifetime. At the launch of her book on Monday last week Deborah, as elegant, alert and loquacious as ever, had to remain seated, a small nasal tube constantly feeding her oxygen. Three days later she died peacefully at home in her sleep, surrounded by her family, as she had wanted.

During her last two days, the blog was updated by her husband Charlie and her twin sister, Paris. Lovingly, they brought it to the perfect conclusion its exacting creator would have expected of herself.Guill Gil. Arthur Charles William Crook, journalist: born London 16 February 1912; Assistant Editor, Times Literary Supplement 1951-59, Editor 1959-74; Consultant, Times Newspapers 1974-2005; President and Chairman, Royal Literary Fund 1984-90; married 1948 Sarita Bushell (one son, two daughters; marriage dissolved), 2002 Juliet Wrightson; died London 15 July 2005. Arthur Crook - future editor of the Times Literary Supplement - started work at The Times in Blackfriars in 1926, when he was only 14, a scholarship boy from Holloway who had had to leave school early because of money problems at home. He had the lowest job going, as one of the front-door messengers, who sat in line like so many taxi-cabs until they were hailed, and then sent off round the town on their errands. In those days, even a messenger might need a family connection to land a job on The Times, and Arthur got his as a favour, because his father was already working there, in the composing-room. That mind-stoppingly rowdy setting wasn't one likely to appeal to a boy who was a big reader. Crook was the opposite, an editor, with no wish to be a writer.