A GWENT-born teacher who died from skin cancer was called "the star of the show" by her partner.

Jo Bryant, who grew up in Abertillery, died at the age of 43 after a brave two-year battle fighting melanoma.

She lived in Cardiff with her partner Sally Burridge, 51, and her two adopted children, aged seven and five, but always said she wanted to have her funeral held in her home town.

Sally, her partner of 15 years, said Jo would be hugely missed. She added that neither she nor Jo, who died last Friday, had any idea how she got the disease and added that she was not a keen sunbather.

"I don't think I've ever known such a popular teacher," she said, herself an assistant head teacher.

"She helped students who were off the rails to achieve things they never thought they could. The legacy she's left us is the sheer number of youngsters she's put on the right road.

She did so much it's difficult to put it into words."

And even when she was faced with the horror of cancer, her positive attitude never faltered.

Sally said: "She went through so many operations, but she was always positive, always fighting it.

"She was completely unique. She had an infectious enthusiasm for life, and so much energy. Everyone who knew her will remember her as a huge personality and the star of the show."

Jo, a secondary school teacher at Willows High School in Cardiff, was adopted a month after being born in Liverpool.

A life-long Liverpool football fan, she enjoyed a happy upbringing in Abertillery with her adoptive father Alan Bryant, although he died when she was three, adoptive mother Jackie and a sister, also called Jackie. Her adoptive grandmother, Iris, was also very important to her.

While going through the adoption process herself, Jo decided to find her own parents.

She discovered she had been put up for adoption because her birth mother, Sue, was only 15 at the time, and also found out that Sue and her birth father, Allan, had remained together and married to have two grown-up sons, Johnny and Ben.

Jo was re-united with her birth family in 2001, and adopted her two children the following year.

Sally said: "The kids didn't have much time with her but they've already picked up some of her phrases, and have inherited Jo's love of painting, drama and tremendous capacity for clutter and mess. They are both wonderful children."

Jo's funeral was due to be held today in the Abertillery Salvation Army Hall which formed a large part of her life in the town.

Donations in her memory can be made to Noah's Ark Appeal, c/o The Salvation Army, 81 Newall Street, Abertillery NP13 1EJ.