February 2026
The fall from grace was a long-time in coming, but given the revelations of the past decade, not unexpected.
We all have stories of brushes with greatness, where we encounter various celebrities. It’s easier than ever to capture these moments forever, but there was once a time when people didn’t have a camera in their hands at all times, via a cell phone, so capturing these moments on film was not too common. That’s why we go autographs.
The highest profile people whom I was lucky enough to photograph back in the day, today are the most reviled living couple on planet Earth: Andrew Windsor-Mountbatten and Sarah Ferguson, the couple formerly known as the Duke and Duchess of York.
In the summer of 1989, I was serving aboard HMCS Porte St Louis (PSL), a Royal Canadian Navy Reserve training ship stationed at the RCN base in Halifax. We were scheduled for a 3-month sail with PSL’s sister ship, Porte St Jean, around the Maritime Provinces and New England States.
In July, we came ashore at Summerside, Prince Edward Island, for the weekend. Word had gotten to the ship that Prince Andrew and his wife Sarah, the Duchess of York, would be coming that weekend to tour the air force base in Summerside. We were also told that Prince Andrew may want to tour our ships, so after we berthed, we were all detailed to extra cleaning stations. I remember being a little annoyed at this, but did as I was told.
As it turned out, Prince Andrew didn’t end up touring our lovely ships, but I did get to snap some nice photographs of the Duke and Duchess as they were greeted by the Mayor of Summerside, along with the approaching helicopter, before dropping them off. It’s too bad that my brush with royalty had to be a man who turned out to be a massive scumbag, pedophile, money-grubbing, credit card-smashing, grifter and and his equally despicable wife, minus the pedophilia.
