She was often the scourge of British broadcasting but former sparring partners paid respectful tribute to the media standards campaigner, Mrs Mary Whitehouse, who has died aged 91.
In her 30-year career as self-styled keeper of public taste and morality, Mrs Whitehouse established the "Clean Up TV" campaign and the National Viewers and Listeners that would see her count the swear words during television programmes and then challenge broadcasters to justify the content.
Mrs Whitehouse, who died after a long illness at an Essex nursing home, undoubtedly had the support of many older viewers who shared her concerns about pornography and public standards.
In 1976 when she secured the conviction for blasphemy of the editor of Gay News for publishing a poem on the sexual feelings a Roman centurion felt for Christ on the cross.
Former Channel 4 chief executive, Lord Grade, praised her as "courageous" but ineffectual: "She represented a view that people would like to see on television, a world that was idealistic and not the world as we know it."
In an interview in the Guardian earlier this year, Mrs Whitehouse, whose influence was so pervasive in the 1980s that she persuaded former prime minister, Baroness Thatcher, to establish a taste and decency broadcasting watchdog, explained the success behind her public achievements. "I was successful professionally, I was a wife, I was a mother and I found that I could get on my feet and say what I wanted to say."