DR JENNIFER BARNES, retired consultant anaesthetist and former Conservative candidate for Dundee City Council, has died at Ninewells Hospital. She was 70.

Born in Barnhill, she was educated at Dundee High School before studying medicine at St Andrews University. She trained as an anaesthetist in Perth and worked there and in Bridge of Earn before moving to Montreal, Canada.

She returned to Broughty Ferry in 1994 and started a small manufacturing business.

Dr Barnes took a keen interest in the environment and was well known as a campaigner on issues such as cutbacks at the Barnhill rock garden and the fate of the former King’s Theatre in Dundee.

She stood unsuccessfully as a Tory candidate for the Douglas ward in the city council elections in 2003.

Dr Barnes was also a frequent contributor to the readers’ letters section of The Courier. She was the daughter of Albert Barnes, the first editor of The Dandy, and in 2001 she was presented with the desk at which he had worked during his service with D. C. Thomson.