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The Australian TEN TV Network Anchor Woman Charmaine Dragun, who took her own life on Friday, was planning to marry her long-term partner and start a family.

Friends of a TV newsreader whose body was found at a notorious suicide spot in Sydney have told of her “brave and private battle with depression”.

“The couple were planning on staging a surprise wedding at their joint 30th birthdays in March next year. The couple had also talked extensively about starting a family.”

Charmaine Dragun, 29, was “determined not to allow it to control her”, they wrote in a letter published in Monday’s edition of The Australian newspaper.

Her death on Friday had left “a gaping hole”, they added. “Not a day will go by where she won’t be truly missed.”

Numerous tributes have been paid by fans of Network Ten’s rising star.

Her death was “a sad and tragic loss - so heartbreaking”, wrote one person on Vogue’s website. “I will miss her sweet smile and voice.”

Another, on the Australian Media site, said: “What a shock - so young and had a bright future as a newsreader.”

Dragun’s parents Michael and Estelle said they hoped she would be “remembered as an angel” who had “brought joy and light to everyone she met”. They thanked well-wishers “during this challenging time”.

The presenter’s death was announced shortly after her body was discovered at the bottom of cliffs at The Gap in the Watsons Bay area of Sydney.

Police said they were not treating her death as suspicious, a statement which suggested she had committed suicide.

Dragun was based at Network Ten’s studios in Sydney, from where she presented news bulletins shown in her native Western Australia.

The letter to The Australian said that “while her death was defined by depression, her life was defined by love”.

“She was making plans with her future husband Simon, whom she had been with since the age of 16,” it read.

Those who wrote the letter told of how Dragun “did find it difficult living away from her family in Perth”, but said she was surrounded by “a tight-knit group of supportive friends in Sydney”.

“Her optimism was evident in the plans she was making for the future,” they added. “A lover of music, she had bought concert tickets to Bjork on the morning of the day she died.”

Compilation clips of her work were posted as tributes on the MySpace and YouTube websites.

More than 110 people had joined a Facebook group called “Charmaine Dragun Rest in Peace”.

On the Vogue website, one comment said: “How sad that another young life ends too soon. Her mum taught at my high school.”

“I really loved her reading the local news here in Perth,” a post on the TVAus forum read. “She was the best one on that network.”

And on the Yahoo message board, one person said Dragun was “such a beautiful person, lost to us all”.

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