A CHILDHOOD friend of comedian Victoria Wood has paid tribute to her work as patron of a York charity, saying: "It will be impossible to replace her."

Lesley Schatzberger, speaking following the death of the 62-year-old actress and writer from cancer earlier this week, said Victoria had been a very active patron of her charity Jessie's Fund.

Lesley said she had gone to Bury Grammar School with Victoria, and they used to go to each other's homes, but had later lost touch.

However, when she founded Jessie's Fund in the 1990s, following the death of her musician daughter Jessica, she had got in touch with Victoria to ask if she might be willing to lend her support for the charity, which brings music into the lives of children with life-limiting illnesses or special needs.

"She said she received many requests from charities which she had to turn down but she remembered me and said she supported the fund's ethos," she said.

"I didn't want to pressurise her because I knew she was busy but she tried to do something for us every year. We became friends again, and met up in London for a tea or coffee or a meal. I’ll miss her terribly, both on a personal level and as patron of the fund."

Victoria previously said in a speech: "I will only be associated with a charity I can really feel part of and with Jessie's Fund I really understand it, I know what it’s for, and I get it."

York actor Andrew Dunn, who performed alongside Victoria in one of her best known TV programmes, the sitcom Dinnerladies, in the late 1990s, said he had had no idea she was even ill. "It was a complete shock," he said. "It still doesn't feel quite real."

He said Victoria had had a phenomenal work ethic and took her work very seriously. "If you did something she didn't like she let you know it!"

He said people still stopped him in the street to say how much they had liked Dinnerladies, and then went straight on to say how much they liked Victoria.

Ian Richardson, spokesman for the Yorkshire Air Museum at Elvington, said she had visited it in 2010 to film scenes for a short documentary called "A nice cup of tea', about the nation's long-standing passion for drinking tea.

He said museum staff had been 'shocked and very saddened' to hear of her death, adding: "We remember Victoria as being warm and witty, despite bearing a leg injury at the time, which must have given her some discomfort but did not deter her from her filming and conversations with the veterans."