Seaton Author and 'poetry guru' Janice Booth has died, aged 84.

During her eventful life, she had been a stage manager, a compiler of logic puzzles for the magazine Logical Challenge, a charity worker in India, a travel writer who co-authored three of the Bradt Guides to regions in Devon, and a public speaker about Rwanda and Socotra.

It was, however, her passion for poetry that she will be most remembered for in Seaton. A few years after she moved to the town in 2001, she started a monthly poetry-reading group which brought together people who simply enjoyed listening to poetry, from Donne to Duffy.

Each National Poetry Day, Janice invited shops and businesses to post a carefully selected poem in their window, and sometimes held poetry-reading sessions in the Public Library and also in The Check House Care Home.

It was during lockdown, however, that her contribution to the town’s poetry scene became widely appreciated. Every day for a year and a half, Janice posted a fresh poem on a board outside her gate.

To begin with just neighbours came to read it but after a while, when word had got around, people would include Wessiters on their morning walk so they could read the latest offering and leave with a smile or a nod of appreciation.

Her family says Janice was a 'remarkable woman.'