LEGENDARY agony aunt and journalist Marjorie Proops died at London's Cromwell Hospital yesterday.

Her age was shrouded in mystery but she was thought to be in her late 70s or early 80s.

Labour leader Tony Blair said: ``She was a legend in journalism and will be sadly missed, not just by the Mirror and its readers, but by the country, who came to appreciate her warmth and generosity.''

Fellow agony aunt Claire Rayner said: ``She was a remarkable woman. I shall miss her, she was terrific.

``She had a long life and she worked right to the end. Her column appeared last week and that would have been very important to her. She cared hugely about her readers.''

Agony aunt Anna Raeburn said former Mirror editor Mike Molloy had told her that Ms Proops had deliberately concealed her age from her employers ``so that they couldn't fire her or retire her.

``As it's so hard for women to work at that echelon, I would like to believe it, and good luck to her.'' Ms Raeburn added: ``She was terrific, and she did some very good writing.''

Mr David Montgomery, chief executive of the Mirror Group, said: ``I first met Marje when I was a young sub-editor and she left me in no doubt who was boss. She demanded the highest standards and that determination never left her. Until her last working day last week, Marje's involvement with the Daily Mirror remained 100%, ranging over the whole paper as well as her columns and comment.''

Lady Olga Maitland, Tory MP and former newspaper columnist, said: ``She was a Fleet Street institution, beloved by everybody.

``She was a woman of the old school with tremendously high standards. She would never stoop to some of the journalistic behaviour of today. She had great integrity, tremendous insight and warmth, and she will always be remembered for her high standards and sheer professionalism.''

Marje Proops began working on the Daily Herald in 1945 as fashion editor but by 1954 was agony aunt on Woman's Mirror.

In 1971, she launched Dear Marje in the Mirror and had a staff of eight to handle more than 50,000 letters a year.

She gave each one careful attention and some correspondents regularly needed her help.

However, behind the ready advice was a woman living a lie in her own life, which was disclosed by a sensational authorised biography less than four years ago.

Her 1935 marriage to engineer Sidney Proops, universally known as Proopsie, was a sham.

She told how she was ``revolted'' by him and they stayed together on the basis that they would not sleep together. This arrangement lasted for much of their 53-year marriage, until his death in 1988.

In the meantime, she had a 20-year affair with newspaper lawyer Philip Levy which lasted until his death in 1987.

Marje Proops was the doyenne of agony aunts and her career spanned the most rapid evolution of moral values since Victorian times.

By the permissive sixties, Marje's column was openly advising young girls on contraception and abortion and young men about their sexual inadequacies.

Columns reflected changes in society, from alcoholic brutes battering their wives and children to people frightened they might have the HIV virus.

In 1994, she and other problem-page writers handed in a letter to 10 Downing Street, calling for the age of consent for homosexual males to be reduced to 16.

She discussed sexuality with compassion and understanding and would defend tabloid newspaper excesses as not being responsible for the problems she tackled.

Her age was closely guarded but it is known she was born Rebecca Rayle around the First World War.

Anti-Semitic abuse in Hoxton made her change to Marjorie, the name of the heroine of a book her mother was reading when she was born.