IN a couple of months, Sarah Ferguson turns 66 and will become a pensioner.
The significance of her next birthday, on October 15 means that I have now been working with Fergie for 40 fabulous years.
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Despite her ups and many downs over those four decades, Sarah, Duchess of York, as she is still known, is still one of my favourite royals.
After being set up on a date engineered by Princess Diana, Fergie started going out with Prince Andrew who, back then in 1985, was one of the world’s most eligible bachelors.
Falklands hero “Randy Andy” fell head over heels for the extrovert redhead, and the following year rumours of an engagement started to circulate.
Every morning a huge mob of press photographers and camera crews would appear outside her office in London’s West End to film her going in to work.
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‘Are you harassing me?’
After three days, her father Major Ronald Ferguson, Prince Charles’ polo manager, phoned me and asked: “Is there anything you can do to make it easier for Sarah?”
So, I spoke to all the photographers and said, “Can we stand back, not hassle her, let her walk into work and we will still get good pictures.”
Incredibly, everybody did as I asked but I’d spent so much time organising it I never got to take a photo myself.
But in all the years I worked with Fergie after that, she never forgot what had happened that day.
By July 1986, Sarah and Prince Andrew were getting married.
Two nights before the ceremony at Westminster Abbey, I went on the Wogan show.
I told Terry how I was desperate to take the kiss picture because five years earlier so many photographers had missed the shot of Charles and Diana kissing on the Buckingham Palace balcony.
I didn’t need to worry because Andy and Sarah kissed so often I shot a whole roll of film.
Then Fergie cupped her ear in a message for me — we heard you, Arthur.
She was a joy to work with, a joy to photograph and never once — however bad things were in her life — turned her back on me.
In August 1990, her stepfather, Argentine polo player Hector Barrantes, was dying of cancer, age 51.
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Fergie travelled to Argentina with two-year-old Beatrice and Eugenie, who was just a babe in arms, to say a final farewell to her mother’s second husband.
I was sent out there and found myself at the gates of a ranch on the outskirts of a strange town nearly 350 miles south of Buenos Aires, where the banks had guards armed with machine guns.
With no phone to contact Fergie, after an hour stood outside the gates I was wondering what to do when I spotted two horses walking slowly towards me.
Dancing with Duchesses
On one horse was Fergie with little Beatrice perched on the saddle and by her side rode her mother, Susan, who had left her husband’s bedside so I could take a photograph.
There were fun times too, like skiing in the Alps where she always gave me an exclusive picture, whether it was the girls blowing out candles on Andrew’s birthday cake or when she fell and posed with her arm in a sling.
I often joke that one of my hobbies is dancing with Duchesses.
Fergie was the first Duchess I ever danced with.
On a ski trip to Klosters in January 1992, I was in a restaurant when Fergie walked in. I spotted her and joked: “Are you harassing me?”
Suddenly an oompah band struck up a fast quickstep. I caught her eye and, with a nod, she said: “How about it Arthur? Come on — let’s boogie.”
Fergie was just so different to any other member of the Royal Family.
Arthur Edwards
Before I knew it, my arm was around her waist and we were whirling around the floor. We must have been on our feet for 15 minutes.
Later, her policeman came over and said: “The Duchess says if you ask her to dance again, I can take a photo of you both.”
There were other great photos along the way. But it isn’t just because of her willingness to help me get a great picture that I like her.
In Los Angeles she gave a speech at a convention when somebody shouted: “I love you Fergie,” and she replied: “I’ll get your number later!”
Fergie was just so different to any other member of the Royal Family.
She made mistakes, like the 1992 “toe-sucking” incident in the south of France with her Texan millionaire financial advisor John Bryan, but she just couldn’t cope with being bossed around by the men in grey suits at the Palace and decided to leave the Royal Family.
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On the day her marriage to Andrew officially ended in 1996, she had taken the girls to a show-jumping competition at Hickstead, West Sussex.
She told me: “You were there at the beginning — you should be here at the end.”
The following year she was staying with Beatrice and Eugenie at a fantastic private villa in Italy.
The world’s press were camped outside but I got a message saying: “She’ll be at this beach. Don’t tell anyone — just go there.”
I arrived at a little hut and got wonderful pictures of her and the girls preparing a picnic and running on the beach together.
And when her friend Princess Diana died in that horrific crash in August 1997, I was at the airport in Paris when my phone rang.
It was Fergie, who had been very close to Diana, asking if I was alright.
Back into the fold
Even though she is reaching pension age, I know she will carry on campaigning to find a cure for Motor Neurone Disease and for her children’s charities.
Despite her fun-loving reputation, she is a worker.
When she was £4million in debt she worked her socks off for WeightWatchers in America, flying to the US every week.
She also worked for Wedgwood and Waterford Crystal in Ireland.
I remember her telling me: “It’s so lovely not to have any more debt.”
In 2022, the year the Queen died, I was invited by King Charles to take a special photograph of all the Royal Family after the Sandringham Christmas church service.
I spotted Fergie looking out the window, and when she saw me she came rushing out to kiss and hug me.
The King had invited her back into the fold.
Even though they have been divorced for nearly 30 years, and I imagine there’s been lots of tears and lots of anger, she will always be there for Andrew.
One thing I know about the King is that he is a kind man who was never going to kick his brother and Fergie out of their home, Royal Lodge at Windsor. He’s not that sort of person.
Sarah and Andrew are still very close and will be until the day they die.
