COMEDIENNE Linda Smith has died from cancer at the age of 48.

Born and brought up in Erith, she was a familiar voice to listeners of BBC's Radio 4.

She regularly appeared on the News Quiz and in her own series, Linda Smith's A Brief History of Timewasting.

Ms Smith started performing in the 1980s and performed many benefits for South Yorkshire coal workers during the miners' strike.

And in 2002 she was voted the Wittiest Living Person by Radio 4 listeners.

But she did not look kindly on her birthplace, where her father worked on the railways and where she studied at Erith College, now Bexley College, in Tower Road, Erith, before going to Sheffield University.

She was often heard on radio making disparaging remarks about the town. She once joked: "It is not twinned with anywhere but it does have a suicide pact with Dagenham."

It is not known if she had visited her home town in recent years after it had undergone huge investment and redevelopment.

She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2002 but did not make her illness public.

Ms Smith is survived by her partner of 23 years, Warren Lakin, and her sister Barbara.