Press man has had William in focus since he was born

When Arthur Edwards started at the British newspaper the Sun 28 years ago, Prince Charles was 28, single and in want of a wife.

Edwards' job was to find her, and newspapers being what they are, to do so preferably before Charles himself did.

The royal photographer found her three years later - Edwards first snapped Diana Spencer as a 19-year-old at a polo game in Sussex on a tip-off he thought was crook "because I remember thinking Prince Charles would not be running round with teenage girls".

He ran with the story a few months later after seeing Prince Charles fishing with her.

But it was Prince Charles' bald spot that provided the foundations for the relationship between the royal family and Arthur Edwards, MBE.

Although professional reserve means Edwards, 64, is not quite trusted with the palace corgis, a healthy rapport has developed between the family and himself.

A rookie on the Sun newspaper's royal round, Edwards snapped the top of Charles' head in 1977 and the Sun ran it on page one with the headline "Prince Charles, there's a patch in your thatch".

A few days later Charles asked if he was responsible.

"I said, 'Yes sir, have you been getting a lot of trouble over it?'

"And he said, 'No, but everywhere I go, people have been photographing the back of my head.' And that is when the Prince of Wales knew who I was."

It started with Charles, carried over to Diana, and has been passed down to William.

The Prince ribs Edwards about his coat at one point, and after a tree-planting on the grounds of Government House, William turned to the press pack and called, "How many of these have you done, Arthur? Hundreds, I should think."

Arthur is not surprised at the familiarity.

He took his first photo of William as a one-day-old baby in Diana's arms outside the hospital. He got William's first steps, first day of school, in his first play, at sports day and William graduating from university, no longer the shy young man who desperately avoided the media.

"I got on well with his mother and he knows that, so even at a young age he would come over and say hello.

"But we know he's a member of the royal family, and I'm a member of the press and as long as we both know our positions then there is no reason we can't be pleasant to each other."

Edwards does not "paparazzi" the royals. The Sun gets its seedier shots from freelancers.

He says he is accused of staking the family out but in reality he usually only sees them for two to three hours a week.

"Most of the time they're in their palaces, or in their cars, or homes."

Now William has been released from an agreement with the press to leave him alone until he graduated and it marks a return to more exciting times for Edwards.

For 17 years Diana was the "only show in town". Since her death, which forced a "mini-revolution" in the palace's attitude to the media, there has just been the staple court food of following the Queen or Prince of Wales to "Leeds on a wet Thursday, Birmingham on a wet Friday, or the races in the rain".

Edwards does not begrudge the palace for the ban on William.

"He has to be able to go to the pub and have one too many if he wants and leave with his arm around his girlfriend without being snapped.

"If he was harassed throughout his education we would end up with a thick king. Instead, he's come out with the best education any member of the royal family has had."

Edwards has a deep respect for the Royals. He thinks Charles is "a superb man" who is unfairly seen as "a bit cranky and perhaps eccentric. Well, he is slightly eccentric, but that's not such a bad thing."