A ROYAL photographer has recalled the tragic moment he discovered Diana had died – and a picture he will never forget.
Arthur Edwards told The Sun his experience working on the devastating day, August 31, 1997, and realising a “big part of [his] life” was gone forever.
As the world prepares to honour Princess Diana’s memory on the anniversary of her death on Saturday, the legendary royal photographer spoke of the tragic day.
He said: “I was at a wedding in in Kent. As we were driving back home, and I got a call from the office saying that Princess Diana was in an accident in Paris but they thought she was all right because she was in a Mercedes car.
“But they said get to Paris first thing in the morning, and there was a flight from Heathrow at 6.30am.
“And of course, as the journey home from Kent proceeded, it got worse and worse. First there was a flash that her partner, Dodi Fayed, had died.
“So now, it’s getting very serious, and that Diana had been rushed to hospital.
“By then The Sun chartered a plane out of Heathrow. I got home, didn’t even change my wedding suit. I just grabbed my camera bag and rushed to the airport.
“The office rang, and it was the picture editor saying to me, Diana had died.
“Everybody went into action, I got a cab, went straight to the tunnel, where she had the tragic accident and there was a lady, a girl lying flowers at the 13th pillar, I think, is where the car crashed.”
Mr Edwards recalled arriving at the hospital and discovering the then Prince of Wales, now King Charles, was coming to collect Diana’s body.
The royal photographer then set up an arrangement with the Embassy to photograph her coffin.
“In the meantime I spoke to Paul Barrel. They brought a dress over for her, and everybody was really upset and then I went round the back and got this amazing picture, which to this day I look back on and think about that day.
“I started to get upset, because, you know, I suddenly realise, this woman I’d worked with for 17 years was indeed in that coffin.”
The esteemed photographer remembered watching Diana’s funeral procession as the rest of the world also looked on in immense sadness.
He continued: “The saddest of all, of course, was seeing William and Harry walking behind the coffin with their father, and of course their uncle, Lord Spencer, and Duke of Edinburgh.
“It was, in fact, the Duke of Edinburgh, I’m told, that convinced William to walk.
“Because William was obviously a young lad, terribly distressed about losing his mother, as was Harry.
By Arthur Edwards
I watched Diana turn from a shy, teenage nursery school assistant into the most famous woman in the world. I can’t believe it’s 20 years since she died.
For the best part of two glittering and unforgettable decades Princess Diana held the world in her hands . . . and I was at her side.
For 17 years she and I were locked together on a crazy roller coaster ride of every emotion imaginable.
I was there to photograph her in those carefree summer days of July 1980 when her romance with Charles first blossomed.
And I was there at Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital in Paris on that darkest day as she lay lifeless
As The Sun’s Royal Photographer my job was to catalogue her life and times.
I followed her on hundreds of Royal engagements.
For weeks at a time I would see more of Diana than my own darling wife, Ann.
The Princess and I were thrown together by circumstance — but we got on well together.
Ten years after her death William and Harry invited me to write a tribute and provide some pictures for their mother’s Wembley memorial concert.
Those first, early meetings with Diana — then a shy teenager — remain burned into my memory nearly 40 years on.
My job on The Sun had been to be the first to identify and photograph the woman who would steal Prince Charles’s heart.
I did find her and photograph her before my rivals.
But I shoved the picture in a drawer because I couldn’t believe the Prince, who was nearly 32, would be going out with a teenager.
My remarkable friendship with Diana began exactly a year to the day before her wedding to the world’s most eligible bachelor.
Tracking down Charles’s new love had become a bit of an obsession with me as I followed him everywhere.
Along the way I saw his other girlfriends, like Davina Sheffield and Sabrina Guinness, but they didn’t last long.
He had only recently broken up with Marjorie Wallace, a stunning girl with model looks who we all thought would be The One.
Then on July 29, 1980, the trail took me to a polo match at Cowdray Park at Midhurst, West Sussex.
I’d been told Charles had arrived with a girl called Lady Diana Spencer but no one seemed to know what she looked like.
Looking around I saw a pretty girl sitting among the crowds wearing a necklace with the letter D on it.
I gave it a go and politely asked: “Excuse me, are you Lady Diana Spencer?”
When she said yes I asked to take a photograph. So she posed for me, her hand delicately framing her face.
But I filed this one in a drawer after discovering that Earl Spencer’s youngest daughter, who worked as a nursery teacher, had only just celebrated her 19th birthday.
I had the scoop of the year but I sent the roll of film back to the office by messenger with a note, “File this, because I’m not sure”.
A month after I’d first photographed her I was driving along the banks of the River Dee near Balmoral, certain she was The One.
Then I saw Prince Charles fishing with an unusual-looking ghillie.
It was Diana dressed as a man. I stopped the car and tore across the field, while Diana ran away, hid behind a tree and used a mirror to look over her shoulder to see where I was.
She suddenly made a dash for it through the trees and I got all these pictures.
Charles stomped out of the river fuming because his fishing had been interrupted.
We then ran my photo of Diana from the polo on Page 1 with a headline: Lady Diana Spencer — All the Qualities to be Queen.
The next day, I trawled around dozens of nurseries in West London looking for her.
Finally I knocked on the door of the Young England kindergarten in Pimlico and asked: “Does Lady Diana Spencer work here?”
She did. I was delighted when she agreed to pose but she insisted on being photographed with two of the children in her arms.
I took her into the park with the children. Halfway through the shoot the sun came out and we saw those beautiful legs.
Later, when the pictures were processed, I went back and told Diana about her see-through skirt.
Blushing, she said: “I’d hate to be known as the girl who didn’t wear a petticoat.”
I never deliberately set out to create a photo like that but when I saw it I was delighted.
Recently Natasha Kaplinsky on BBC Radio 5 Live took me to task over it.
She asked: “Why did you take it?”
I did it because it was a great picture. It became one of the most famous images of Diana, remembered by everybody.
Every day the Press would go to the lovely flat Earl Spencer had bought Diana and take pictures of her leaving for work and coming home.
Looking back, she coped with it all very well.
One day, she stopped me and asked: “Why are you so interested in me?”
I said: “You know why, you seem the perfect girl with no past.”
She just smiled and laughed and the reporter with me said: “If you get the big job you’ve got to give me and Arthur knighthoods.”
It was a bit of fun.
“And apparently the Duke said to William, If you walk, I’ll walk with you. And and that was it, and they did.
“I remember one woman called out, God bless you, Harry, God bless you, Harry! And a photographer next to me I’d worked with for 20 years, was crying his eyes out.
“Everybody was. The grief was tremendous.”
Speaking more of his memories with Diana, Mr Edwards said: “It just reminds me of the wonderful times we had, you know, from touring the different countries around the world, where she would be dressed with a headscarf on, or she would be wearing a beautiful headband or amazing tiaras.
“This woman was a a big part of my life and a part of my life I’ll never forget. And she was fun, and she was a lovely person to work with.”
On August 31, 1997, millions of hearts broke worldwide as the news of Princess Diana’s death was announced.
She was known to many as the People’s Princess, and since her death a number of poignant tributes have been placed around London to honour the life and work of Diana.
Princess Diana, also known as Diana Frances Spencer, died on August 31, 1997, after suffering fatal injuries in a car crash in the Pont de l’Alma road tunnel in Paris.
The tunnel is located in the heart of the French capital next to the River Seine.
Her companion Dodi Fayed and driver and security guard Henri Paul were also killed in the devastating crash.
Diana’s bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was severely injured but survived the accident.
Diana’s funeral was held on September 6, 1997, at Westminster Abbey and was shown on British television – attracting an audience of 32.1million viewers.
In 2008, an inquest held in London concluded that the Princess had been unlawfully killed.
The inquest found Diana’s driver, Henri Paul’s driving to be grossly negligent, as well as the pursuing of paparazzi vehicles.
After years of separation, Prince Charles and Princess Diana divorced in 1996.
In 1997, Princess Diana spent her summer in the south of France and Italy. During August, she visited Sarajevo, Bosnia, to highlight the fight against landmines.
By the end of the month, the Princess of Wales and Dodi Al-Fayed travelled to Paris together.
It was revealed that Princess Diana stayed longer than planned in Paris due to a row over her land mine campaign.
Travelling in a black Mercedes Benz, Princess Diana was involved in a car crash in the Pont de l’Alma tunnel on August 31, 1997.
The Princess of Wales died at the age of 36.
Her funeral was held on September 6, 1997. As her coffin made the journey from Kensington Palace to Westminister Abbey, Prince William and Prince Harry walked behind their late mother.
Princess Diana’s mother, Frances Shand Kydd, and sisters, Jane Fellowes and Sarah McCorquodale, also attended the funeral.
The Princess of Wales was buried at her childhood home – Althorp House
If it wasn’t for her tragic death, Princess Diana would have been 62 today.
