RON Case, pioneering chief photographer of the Echo from its start in 1969 to the early 1990s, has died at the age of 83.

Ron, who had seen service in the Royal Navy became a Fleet Street photographer as a young man.

He never left home then without his passport and his tooth brush.

His wife Barbara did not know for certain whether he would be home that night or phoning back from a picture assignment somewhere else in the world.

On duty or off it he always had his camera in the car, a practice which stayed with him until only a few weeks before his death.

“There will always be a picture somewhere,” he said.

Ron, who lived in Ongar and died at the local cottage hospital, leaves a widow Barbara, daughter Wendy and son Peter, who followed in his father’s footsteps and is a national newspaper picture editor.

Ron was an ideas man as a well as the consummate professional who brought his skills to lead the picture team at the Echo for more than 20 years.

He “saw” a picture when it might not otherwise have existed.

When the government first opened its multi-floored VAT headquarters at Southend, Ron persuaded its security team to let him take over the building for an hour in the late evening.

He arranged for lights to be switched on in only a few rooms and all the others switched off.

It resulted in the word VAT to be displayed over more than six storeys of the building.

Another elaborate idea of Ron’s saw him arrange a special picture with Billericay School students to mark the date, August 8, 1988, or 8.8.88.

Hiring a helicopter and arming him and the school with two-way radios, he arranged for white-shirted children to spell out the date on the school playing field below.

It had to be done three weeks before the actual date because of the school holidays.

It worked and Ron’s picture appeared on the date.

Earlier in his career, Ron’s ability to spot the “different” picture snapped a photograph in 1952 which brought him worldwide fame, but not fortune. Covering the funeral of King George VI for the famous Keystone agency, Ron saw in a moment an exclusive picture which has appeared and reappeared for the past half century, all over the world.

The Three Queens captured the moment in mourning of Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth II as they moved briefly together as the coffin was carried to the funeral service.

It was the only picture published showing the Queens closely together.

Ron, who lectured to journalists and young photographers in the training scheme run by the Echo’s previous owners, Westminster Press, for years after his retirement, often said: “If I had an old shilling for every time that picture had appeared around the world, I would be a rich man.”

He received nothing for taking it.

l Ron Case’s funeral will be on Wednesday, October 1, at 10am, at Parndon Wood Cremat-orium, Harlow.