A 23-year-old student from the Ribble Valley collapsed and died just minutes after completing a final dissertation for her Masters Degree.

Former Clitheroe Royal Grammar School pupil Vicky Stockton, of Beechthorpe Avenue, Waddington, was taken ill ten minutes after e-mailing the course work to her tutor at Lancaster University.

Her devastated parents have spoken of a fun-loving and hard-working daughter, who was due to attend the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Surrey, after she completed her degree in sociology and international relations.

Vicky complained of feeling unwell before collapsing just after midnight last Wednesday.

Her father, Chris, 50, said: "She had just finished her MA at Lancaster. Not 10 minutes before she died she'd e-mailed the final dissertation she had to do to achieve it.

"I thought she was beautiful, clever, loyal, determined. She could be stubborn and wasn't one to hide her feelings. You knew if she didn't think you were doing the right thing.

"Sometimes she would have the most bizarre taste in clothes as well.

"She liked going out and having fun but she was also prepared to work very hard and had worked her way through university.

"As well as her degree she got her licensee certificate so she could run the college bar and was heavily involved in university sport. She played for the football team.

"The university had an inter-college sports contest called the Carter Shield and when she was sports rep for the university's Grizedale College they won it for the first time. She was good at chivvying people along."

Her mother Julie, 49, said: "She had a lot going for her."

The Stocktons, who also have two sons, Ed and Will, said that the university have agreed to posthumously award Vicky her postgraduate degree.

An inquest into her death has been adjourned pending further results from a post-mortem examination.