GAZETTE & HERALD: Inspiring headteacher Vicki Konynenburg, who steered many troubled adolescents towards a better future, died suddenly in the early hours of Friday after a brain operation.

Mrs Konynenburg, of St Mary Street, Chippenham, discovered in October she had an arteriovenous malformation. It is a defect in the circulatory system, which is present since birth, and can at any time become debilitating or life-threatening.

Mrs Konynenburg, 54, who was married to Jack, mother to Joshua, Carrie and Saskia, and stepmother to Freddy, consulted with her family and decided to have the major, 12-hour operation at Bristol's Frenchay Hospital, but tragically she never came round after surgery.

She was headteacher at the Marlborough House Psychiatric Adolescent Unit in Swindon.

Mr Konynenburg said: "She possessed a fantastic ability to really engage with young people with problems, whose lives had gone astray."