LINDA Stafford, doyenne of lifestyle journalism, who died this week, wore several hats - all of them flamboyantly. Her husband Basil White (they were married for 22 years) once told me she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

Bruce Cohen, who studied at Rhodes with her, agreed: "In the mid-70s, Linda could be seen striding - like a sleek Vogue model on a catwalk - down Grahamstown's High Street. We would stop and marvel at this wonder, jostle for her attention and (to quote Leonard Cohen) howl at her beauty like dogs in heat ... those decades-old memories just don't seem to fade."

How Linda would have loved that! Even now I can hear her trademark throaty chuckle and refined vowels booming above the hubbub of the restaurants and sidewalk cafes she frequented. Staffie, as her friends called her, had a way of turning every event into a party.

"When I think of Linda, I hear raucous laughter. I see a multi-coloured scarf and I hear the pouring of a drink over ice," recalls media publicist Tilly Smith Dix.

Indeed, Linda loved scarves, she loved liquor, and she loved life. Her friends loved her for her wit and cheerful dismissals of the po-faced teetotaller and anti-smoking brigade.

"Who wants to be 93? Not me," she'd say.

To her children - son Josh, whose Rhodes graduation she was looking forward to attending - and stepsons Dominic and James White, she was a warm, loving mum.

James says: "I loved her for the joy she brought to my dad and for introducing Josh to us as a brother. She always cooked the most incredible meals though she usually found something to criticise about her food, perfect as it was."

Linda was like that in her work, too. An associate editor on the Financial Mail, she was a word wizard and mentor to many. Her writing was crisp, pitch perfect, often fecund with literary allusion but she dismissed praise, insisting she could have done better.

"She had that unique ability to make everyone love her," said Basil, who called her his "Mudlark". He was her "Puffin".

Linda also leaves her mother June Stafford, a brother, Anthony, and two sisters, Julia and Carol Anne.