TRIBUTES have been pouring in for former Fleet Street journalist Harry Warschauer, of Flackwell Heath, who died on Thursday aged 76, after a short illness.

As the final curtain came down on the life of a great character, his family, friends and colleagues reflected on a life whose story lays testament to the triumph of the human spirit. A man whose insurmountable spirit saw him rise against the odds to become an award-winning journalist and role model for all who met him.

He was born into a Jewish family in the small village of Forst on Germany's border with Poland on November 10, 1924, where he lived with his father Simon Warschauer, a leather merchant, mother Edna and older sister Laura.

His father was killed in a motoring accident when Harry was ten years old and his mother later remarried.

But Hitler's Nazi regime was gathering momentum and the family moved to Berlin after the young Harry was barred from the local grammar school.

Further persecution ensued and eventually the family fled to Prague in Czechoslovakia in early 1939.

The Nazis invaded in March, 1939 but his parents managed to save their children from the concentration camp.

His sister was sent to Britain with an English couple while Harry found himself among hundreds of Jewish children allocated a place on one of the last Kindertransport from Prague.

Aged just 14 and clutching a single suitcase, Harry arrived in Liverpool Street Station, London, in May 1939.

Initially, he worked on farms but as soon as he as he was old enough joined the British Army serving in the Jewish Brigade in Italy in 1944.

But it was in the competitive newsrooms of Fleet Street where Harry really made his mark.

He began as a freelance, sending uncommissioned pieces to magazines and newspapers where he impressed editors with his eye for a story and eventually the Sunday newspaper, The People snapped him up where he embarked on a ground-breaking career as an investigative journalist.

His proudest achievement was as the first Western journalist to report from Prague during the short-lived spring uprising of 1968.

Former news editor of the Sunday People and great friend of Harry, Laurie Manifold, remembers him well.

"In his specialist field of undercover journalism he was a genius and a brave man," he said.

"His work on a major drugs bust won a personal commendation from the Met Commissioner and his contribution to exposing top-level police corruption in the 70s was vital. He was responsible for the first-ever expos of a British paedophile organisation. He was an erudite and witty companion."

But a major overhaul by Robert Maxwell saw him being made redundant in 1985.

He then offered his talents to Midweek, the Star and the Free Press, writing the Midweek Backchat column where his commitment to "telling it how it is" raised a few brows.

Former news editor of the Bucks Free Press Karen Hoy said: "Harry was the best teacher many young reporters could have ever had and I am sure none of us will ever forget that."

And despite the heavy demands of his work, Harry never forgot the people.

His allegiance to the Liberal Party saw him standing as parliamentary candidate in Brent North West, London in 1974 and later, after moving to Flackwell Heath with his wife Judy, he stood as Wycombe candidate in 1976 and again in 1978.

He also found time to stand as a governor for Hannah Ball School in High Wycombe, where the children fondly called him Harry the Hatman after the books because of his eccentric collection of hats.

The minister of Maidenhead Synagogue, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, who knew Harry for 20 years, told how much he loved reading poetry to children and described him as a "wordsmith par excellence".

"As one who wrote about the lives of other people, Harry could very well have been the subject of a major study himself," he added.

A treasured moment in Harry's life was when he finally got to meet his saviour and orchestrator of the Kindertransport, Nicholas Winton, in 1989.

But it was in 1990 that Harry, his sister Laura and his eldest son Simon made an emotional pilgrimage to Forst, the town he had left almost 55 years before.

Here he was met by prominent members of the community and visited his father's grave in Poland and in an emotional piece he wrote how he witnessed the unveiling of a black rock in Forst's town centre which had been placed with the inscription Synagogue Forst and a Star of David.

It was the highlight of Harry's visit and he remarked how proud he felt when the pastor Herr Schenka quoted his favourite saying of Edmund Burke: 'Evil will triumph when good men do nothing.'

A fitting doctrine for a man whose crusades will forever light in the minds of all good men.

Harry leaves his wife Judy, Business Editor for the Free Press, his four children, Simon, Peter and Jonathan from his first marriage and his and Judy's daughter Susan and two grandsons Michael and Matthew.

His funeral was Braywick Cemetery, Maidenhead, on Monday.