diary of a fleet street photographer

by keith waldegrave

The picture that started my journey to Fleet Street! The editor of the Kentish Express clearly recognised that 10 year old Keith Waldegrave had hidden talent!

My first ever published picture!

Rock and roll legend Little Richard was virtually unknown when he performed at Tofts, a small local club in Folkestone, Kent in 1960s. I had just started training as a photographer with The Kentish Express.

James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 returns from a European publicity tour for the film ‘Goldfinger’ in February 1965. I was a 20 year old trainee at the Kentish Express.

British Journal of Photography cover from 1969, picture taken of ski instructor in Aviemore, Scotland.

Elaine Gray was attempting to swim the English Channel in the summer of 1969. She’d successfully made the crossing before and was on schedule for a record-breaking swim. Despite perfect conditions and a flat calm sea she had a crisis of confidence five hours into her swim. Official observer Peter Frayne trod water with her in mid channel trying to coax her to carry on. She grew cold during the lengthy discussion and then gave up. The passing ferry emphasised the dangers of swimming across one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

Fellow journalist and multiple channel swimmer Keith Murphy sets off from Shakespeare Beach, Dover for his 36 hour two way swim. That’s me in the sea behind him with the underwater camera, 1975.

Prince Charles representing the Queen in Papua New Guinea. At the independence celebrations, 1975.

Elton John arrives in a wheelchair for his concert in Sydney, Australia in 1979. At the time I worked for The Australian.

An Afghan boy at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan March 1982…

…one of the many refugees injured by anti-personnel mines during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. My first assignment for the Mail on Sunday prior to the papers launch in May 1982.

Pope John Paul II, May 1982

Rock band Queen at the Imperial Hotel, Vienna in 1983. I had a highly prized ‘access all areas’ pass and hundreds of pictures of the band performing on stage but the one picture of the band off stage took some getting. After two days of persuasion and thirty seconds to actually shoot it. I got my picture – but then the art desk cropped it to remove most of the regal setting when it went in the paper. It was always heart breaking after so much effort but sadly became less and less surprising over time.

Queen in Vienna 1983, how the picture appeared in the Mail on Sunday.

Lord Kinsdale, for a feature on the Nouveaux Pauvres. Aristocrats with titles but no money. In front of what remains of his ancestral home – literally the family pile in Cork, Ireland August 1984

Double agent Garbo, after been honoured for his service during WW2 outside Buckingham Palace, June 1984.

Jogging with Madonna and her personal trainer, Green Park London August 1987. Picture by the late Tom Stockill.

Jeffery Archer celebrates his purchase of the Playhouse Theatre London 1988

It wasn’t always business class and five star hotels, travelling the world for The Mail on Sunday.

Afghanistan 1989, the Russians are pulling out and we were walking in. A sea of mud for 300 miles.

Doing my best to blend in…

On a mission to find English midwife Sarah Dobson in a biblical landscape. These pictures and the whole of our three week odyssey was never published!

Barnet cheese maker Nacho Elkin and Kevin the goat! January 1990.

Comic actor Sir Norman Wisdom was always a big favourite of mine as a schoolboy. It was a joy to photograph him at his home on the Isle of Man in November 1992 and like me he was an active cyclist in old age!

Russian top gun! Flying over Moscow in a SU 27…

…in the era of Glasnost and Perestroika. A ride in a ‘Flanker’ @£88 per minute! The Office paid!

Writer Caroline Davis and me with our pilots, March 1993.

Princess Diana at the Literary Review lunch September 1995

Royal family, Buckingham Palace. Looks like they’re having a joke at my expense! Not sure what I did to attract their attention.

A Lancaster Bomber from the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight drops a million poppies over the congregation at the Queen Victoria Memorial on VJ Day 19th August 1995. Picture taken from the roof of Buckingham Palace.

Princess Diana visiting Sarajevo, Bosnia to meet with landmine victims and to raise awareness of the lives they destroy. Taken just a few weeks before her untimely death, 31st August 1997.

Simon Mann interview, March 2008, Equatorial Guinea.

Coup d’etat trial , Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. Old Etonian mercenary Simon Mann waits for proceedings to begin on the second day of his trial.

Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. Old Etonian mercenary Simon Mann pictured in court in Malabo on the third day of his trial for his involvement in the attempted coup d’etat in 2004.

Joshua Milton Blayhi aka General Butt Naked, one of the Liberian civil war’s most notorious warlords. Chillingly he spontaneously posed with children at a school he helps support in a poor area on the outskirts of Monrovia many of whom were of a similar age to those he killed during ritual sacrifices to dehumanise his brutal boy soldiers. Pictured in Liberia November 2010.

Joshua Milton Blayhi aka General Butt Naked, one of the Liberian civil war’s most notorious warlords turned evangelist preacher delivers a sermon to the congregation of a church in Monrovia.

Joshua Milton Blayhi aka General Butt Naked, one of the Liberian civil war’s most notorious warlords conducts an animated interview with Mail on Sunday journalist Edna Fernandes.