A popular former council worker and film buff has died.

Campaigner Gina Giovannone worked at Walthamstow Central Library for over a decade and was a well-known and much loved figure locally.

She began work as a library assistant for Waltham Forest in 1990 and was quickly promoted to information supervisor before obtaining a professional librarian qualification.

She spent 25 years as a librarian.

A keen movie fan, she also contributed material to the long running McGuffins Film Quiz in the early days of the campaign to save Walthamstow's EMD Cinema.

Giovannone lived in Hainault Road in Leytonstone for many years, but returned to her native Wales, the small town of Tonypandy, after leaving the borough in 2001.

She remained a regular visitor to Waltham Forest where she had a wide circle of friends.

In more recent years, she worked as a classics librarian at the University of Texas in America where she was also highly respected as an animal welfare campaigner.

In the States she devoted many hours to the care and rehabilitation of neglected and abandoned pets.

Gina Giovannone, 53, passed away after a short illness and her funeral was held in Texas, last week.