Mike Charity's first assignment as a royal photographer came in the icy winter of 1963. He was living in a tiny Cheltenham flat with a primitive dark room in the airing cupboard, and had to wash his prints in the bath.  | | The Queen at the Tewkesbury Abbey Maundy Service in 1970 |
But he got the pictures of Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon visiting friends in Dowdeswell that two national agency photographers missed because the atrocious weather had held them up. Mike sold them his prints, and that was the first of a lifetime of assignments from country houses balls to official engagements in which he has snapped just about every member of the royal family. Now his favourite royal photographs feature in a new book The Royal Family In Gloucestershire. See a selection of his pictures in our photo gallery - link on the link below. 
Mike's early royal assignments required a big investment for a struggling photographer - a £20 evening suit from Burtons, which has only been replaced once.  | | The special smile: The Queen Mother arrives in Cheltenham in 1964 |
"I was going to change it until I saw Mark Phillips' father's suit on one occasion and that must date from about 1920. Mine must have come in and out of fashion about three times!" And Mike's favourite royals to photograph? "The Queen Mother always reacted to the camera and she seemed to know if a photographer was in the wrong position, she'd ease round and you could get a picture. "And Princess Michael of Kent is very laidback and very relaxed in front of the camera." Mike also photographed Princess Diana when, before her marriage, she and Charles made their first walkabout together in Tetbury in 1981. He recalls: "She was stunning, a very photogenic lady." While the royals are on first-name terms with some Fleet Street photographers Mike has not been quite so imtimate, though he has attracted comment from his royal 'subjects' on occasion.  | | Diana on her first walkabout in Tetbury in 1981 |
"On one occasion Prince Charles stopped as he was coming down the steps to a royal theatre production and said: 'I hope they come out' and on another occasion Prince Diana said as she walked past me 'I hope you're going to make us laugh'." Mike is donating half the royalties from his book to the Gloucestershire Prostrate Cancer (Bachytherapy Unit) Trust, launched in 2001 to raise funds for a specialist prostrate cancer unit in Cheltenham. He says: "It's my way of repaying in some small way the people of Cheltenham in particular and Gloucestershire in general for their help, assistance and generosity over the past 40 years." The Royal Family In Gloucestershireis published by Tempus Publishing of Stroud and available from county bookshops, price £14.
Do you have photographs of the royal family in the county that you would like to share on this website? Email gloucestershire@bbc.co.uk | 
