I would like to pay tribute to TV star Paula Yates who died on September 17, 2000.

She ate regularly at the Eastbourne Pavilion tea rooms, which - with their starched pinnies, fan-shaped wafers and doilies - more than met her exacting standards.

A favourite meal of hers was Welsh rarebit and ice cream sundae.

I noticed her in the queue at Hastings WI market on a Friday morning, impatient to get her hands on a lemon drizzle cake and a bunch of dahlias.

She limbered up and stretched her hamstrings, hands on the ground, like Carl Lewis at the starting blocks. Shopkeepers loved her.

Neighbours dropped by daily with freshly-picked raspberries, tomatoes and giant marrows.

I sat with Paula once on the pebble beach at Hastings and she described her daughter, Heavenly Hirran Tiger Lily, as a future Australian Olympic swimming champ.

I hope she is still in people's thoughts three years on.

-Lorraine Forbes, Eastbourne