THE world's oldest page three model has said it is "devastating" The Sun will no longer feature topless women.

Annette Edwards, aged 63, spoke of her sadness at reports the newspaper nude will be axed after 44 years.

Ms Edwards, of Pershore Road in Stoulton near Worcester, lamented the end of an era and said she believes the paper's sales could plummet .

The move follows a two-year campaign started by Lucy Holmes, who called on The Sun to “stop conditioning your readers to view women as sex objects”.

Campaigners from Worcester have hailed the choice as "long overdue".

However, Ms Edwards said: "The news is so sad.

"It's devastating really, it's been going for so long and all the girls I know who do page three are very classy girls and this is their career.

"I don't see any harm in it really.

"You go on a beach or go into a nightclub and you'll see far worse - short skirts and it all hanging out.

"Those girls are up to far more than the page three girls.

"I think the sales will go down, because the first thing a lot of guys who buy that paper will do is look at page three.

"They'll buy it to have a look at the pretty girls and I don't see how that can be wrong."

A pair of glamour models from the county - Malvern beauties Mandy Savory and Katie Orgill - were regular faces on both page three and in your Worcester News in the late 80s and early 90s.

In fact, Ms Savory issued a staunch defence of page three in an April 1988 piece in this newspaper, saying "I can't see any harm in it and I don't think it should be stopped".

Susan Avery, from the 'No More Page 3 Worcester' group, welcomed this week's news.

She said: "It appears that The Sun is no longer featuring topless models on page three of its daily newspaper and the No More Page 3 campaign is hailing this as a long overdue but very positive move.

"Girls and women (and boys and men) should be valued for what they can do - for their characters and their strengths, not what they look like.

"There is still a way to go in terms of sexism in the print and broadcast media but this is a really good step forward."

Singleton Ms Edwards, who is in the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest page three model and who continued to do shoots last year, admitted she fears for the future of some page three models.

"It could have a financial impact [for topless models]," Ms Edwards said.

"Some of the girls really rely on page three and they are going to suffer as they're not tall enough to do other types of modelling.

"My fear is that they might go down the wrong route if they haven't got the right guidance."

As previously reported, Ms Edwards is also known for owning the world’s biggest rabbit and for spending £10,000 on surgery to transform herself into a real-life version of cartoon character Jessica Rabbit.