Changed history

as an equal, and soon women journalists like Mirror pals Marje Proops, Audrey Whiting and fashion editor Felicity Green were changing things.

Doreen says modestly: “I like to think I played a small role in changing attitudes – never waving any big feminist flag, just by turning up every morning and getting on with the job.”

But as she thrived, Pierre struggled. Pictures like her Keeler and Rice-Davies scoop hit his self esteem and he sunk deeper into alcohol addiction.

Doreen stood by him, only divorcing in 1978, and when he died in 1981 she was devastated.

But she worked on until 60, retiring in 1988. As we chat, her memories create snapshots of four decades of headlines. She covered the 50th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme – now 100 years ago – the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the Miners’ Strike and Greenham Common protests. She met victims of the Yorkshire Ripper, of the Zeebrugge ferry disaster, and of the fire at Fenchurch Street station.

She laughed at the egos of stars like Liberace, Freddie Mercury and Yoko Ono and laughed with Margot Fonteyn, Les Dawson and Spandau Ballet.

And she photographed the Queen hundreds of times, as well as the icy Duchess of Windsor and besotted former King Edward VIII.

In 1986, at the Great Wall of China, she heard the Duke of Edinburgh laugh to a group of British students, “If you stay here much longer, you’ll all be slitty-eyed.”

She says: “Before I could stop myself I hissed, ‘Ooh, you shouldn’t have gone and said that!’ And I was right – what a palaver it caused.” Back at the Mirror for the first time since retiring, Doreen sees some of her iconic images that now grace the newsroom walls. Like the one of Labour leader Neil Kinnock falling into the sea on Brighton beach during his party’s 1983 conference. “I got that because I ran into the water,” she laughs, “None of the blokes wanted to get their feet wet!” In the editor’s office hangs a huge image of the Queen visiting in 1976. It features dozens of men, but just two women. Her Majesty – and Doreen Spooner, Fleet Street royalty. HER AMAZING PICTURES IN TOMORROW’S