Obituary: Sharon McCord, award -winning, multi-talented journalist BORN: 26 February, 1967, in Fauldhouse, West Lothian. Died: 11 November, 2012, in Edinburgh, aged 45. The photograph accompanying her blog post "Finding some fun" pretty much sums up Sharon McCord: big hair; big earrings; scarlet lipstick slicked across a big, mischievous smile. Oozing glamour, the image is dated 1990, by which time the vivacious, West Lothian-born Miss McCord had morphed, but only on a literary basis, into the pretentiously named Sara Villiers, an identity concocted tongue-in-cheek with a surname naughtily pinched from a student newspaper contributor. She had not yet had her face plastered all over the side of a Glasgow bus but she was about to become the girl-about-town columnist, "The Carrie Bradshaw of Sauchiehall Street," several years ahead of her Sex and the City counterpart on the small screen. As Sara, she allowed her readers to follow the exploits of her singleton lifestyle while voicing her opinions on the issues of the day - "mainly about my talent for putting on eyeliner in the back seat of a taxi under the influence of four G&Ts while en route to a date with another no-good man etc etc." Fast forward 20 years. She's back to Sharon, has become depute secretary of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS) and looks back on it as "all breathless, hedonistic piffle." In between, she's enjoyed an impressive journalistic career in newspapers, television and magazines before turning her hand to communications and marketing and once again sharing her thoughts and opinions with the world, only this time blogging about the more sobering subject of her own mortality. It's a measure of the woman that she still scheduled in "finding fun" while continuing to work in the prodigious, well-organised way of the perfectionist she was, matching the "unwelcome grasp" of terminal kidney cancer with determination and gallows humour. "If you are an emotional vampire hoping to suck some pain and anguish out of these pages, then keep surfing..." she warned her blog followers. She had lost none of her wit and vivacity - labelling herself Moon Face while documenting the bloating effects of some treatment with an unflattering image her vanity would normally have prevented her from publishing. Having always wanted to become a journalist, she set about achieving her ambition, escaping Fauldhouse to embark on an English degree at the University of Glasgow in 1984. It turned out the degree was superfluous as she established herself as a writer during her studies, becoming editor of the university's Guardian student newspaper. She ditched her degree without graduating and went freelance, rapidly proving her worth to a whole spectrum of publications. In 1993, she was runner-up in the Scottish Press Awards" Young Journalist of the Year category, for her work with Scotland on Sunday and The Herald. She contributed to titles including the Observer, Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, The Scotsman, Daily Express and Sunday Mail. By 1994 her career portfolio included posts as current affairs researcher for Scottish Television and senior drama critic for The Herald. The mid-1990s also saw the success of her opinionated singleton column for The Herald - the attendant publicity ensuring her face appeared on the side of a bus. As in all her journalistic work, it was written under the pseudonym Sara Villiers, an identity that resulted from the perception, in the late 1980s, that her own name, Sharon, "was shorthand for naffness," she said. With the help of a friend she concocted "something horribly pretentious instead." Her confessional style of writing, concentrating mainly on the exploits of her and her gang, coincided with the rising demand for sparky, female newspaper columnists, and hers ran for several years. She also wrote on food, architecture, design and interiors. She took on the only staff job of her journalistic career, as a features writer and TV critic for Scotland on Sunday's Spectrum magazine in 1998. But by the following year she was back to freelancing, preferring to operate under her own steam from her office at home. The list of publications to which she contributed her meticulously researched pieces continued to expand, taking in titles including the RIAS's Prospect, the Museums Journal and a catering magazine. But in 2004, having seen huge changes in the newspaper industry and having fallen out of love with writing for papers, she left journalism. She'd also grown out of Sara Villiers and, professionally, became Sharon McCord again. Seeking a new challenge, she worked with BuildStore on its internet site, then moved to the Young Scot charity where she set up its telephone helpline before becoming membership manager for the Scottish Tourism Forum. She joined the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland at the end of 2007, initially in a marketing and communications role, and quickly became a vital part of the team, her ability and enthusiasm immediately evident. She was soon promoted to depute secretary, a post with significant management responsibility, and reinvented the RIAS Quarterly magazine, being awarded the incorporation's honorary fellowship for services to journalism and architecture. "Sharon was a superb advocate for architecture in Scotland and a great supporter of a profession she believed in deeply," said RIAS president Sholto Humphries. Her work over the past five years has strengthened the organisation and helped deliver a level of public recognition and political respect which is arguably greater than at any time in our long history. She began her Kidney Cancer Info blog a couple of years ago, after being diagnosed with the disease in 2009, and offered gloriously witty accounts of her life and treatment, along with factual information about the disease. She also supported Maggie's Cancer Caring Centres, completing a fundraising mile walk this summer despite being hugely debilitated. Typically, nothing was done in half measures, and her team raised 1,755 per cent of its target. A legendary party-thrower, she was organised to the last, leaving detailed instructions for her funeral which will be followed by a celebration of her life. "She was meticulous in her approach to the organisation of everything, work and life," said Neil Baxter, her RIAS boss and friend. A woman who left others "in the wake of the comet that was Sharon." She is survived by her husband Robin, her parents Patsy and Jimmy, sisters Jackey and Louise and brother Jason.