WHEN Duncan Jeffery says he helped put on the wedding of the century he isn’t exaggerating.

If you thought organising a wedding was a lot of work, imagine what it was like being part of the team behind the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Duncan, a former editor of the Daily Echo, is head of communications at Westminster Abbey and found himself running the biggest global media event of 2011.

“My role was to act as liaison with Clarence House, which is the private office of the Prince of Wales and the two young princes, as well as Buckingham Palace,” says Duncan.

“My job was to oversee the media coverage of the wedding but my particular area of responsibility was television. I liaised with the BBC special events team putting their 41 cameras in round the Abbey. What they filmed was broadcast to an audience of two billion worldwide!”

Duncan had the chance to meet several members of the Royal Family when they came to visit the Abbey before the big day and hold rehearsals, including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, as they now are, and best man Prince Harry.

“They were very charming,”

says the 59-year-old.

“They were very easy to work with and not at all grand. Our main aim was to make sure they had the wedding they wanted.

Many people thought that Westminster Abbey was too big. Also, one of the problems with the Abbey is that it’s essentially a church of two halves, divided by the choir screen. Actually, the result was that where they got married, in the lantern of the Abbey, along with the two transepts, is no bigger than a large parish church, so the wedding was exactly the kind of intimate affair that they hoped it would be.”

Duncan watched the ceremony itself from the principle camera position, high above the great western door. says. “I felt immensely nervous the day before and all the way up to when the bride arrived.

When the choir began to sing I was so glad. I suddenly thought ‘this is going to be alright’.”

The Royal Wedding was followed just six weeks later with another huge date in Westminster Abbey’s calendar – a visit from the world’s most powerful man, Barack Obama.

“We were already planning for President Obama’s visit in the late stages of preparation for the Royal Wedding,” he says.

“Security for the day was incredibly tight. The visit was extraordinary because the first vehicle in his motorcade was arriving at the Abbey as the last one was leaving Buckingham Palace!”

Duncan didn’t get a chance to meet President Obama but he did meet the First Lady and the couple’s children when she brought her daughters to the Abbey some months earlier for a private visit.

“They were very nice people,” he says.

Before taking up his role at Westminster Abbey, Duncan was chief press officer to Mayor of London Ken Livingstone from 2000 to 2005.

“He’s an extraordinary man, a wonderful character,” he says.

“In some ways he’s a gift to anyone handling his media affairs because he has the ability to command media attention – you don’t have to work very hard to get him into the papers. But at the same time, it’s not always the attention you would want. We had spent many months working out our strategy for releasing the information that public transport fares were going to rise and explained it all to Ken. Then the next day he was asked on the radio when the fares were going up and said ‘Oh, in January’, so all that planning went out of the window!

“He’s a lovely man to work for,” he adds. “He has the interests of the people of London at heart, whatever people might think of him.”

Duncan loves his work but admits that he sometimes still misses the buzz of a newspaper office.

“I was at the Echo from 1986 to 1990, when it was still in Above Bar,” he says.

“I’d been assistant editor at the Eastern Daily Press, so this was my first editor’s role and my first time working for a busy evening newspaper.

Southampton is very different from rural Norfolk. It’s a busy, vibrant city with a big port.

“When I started it was still all typewriters so the newsroom was very noisy. The editor’s office was off on its own so I spent a lot of my time in the newsroom.

“When we had the great storm in 1987 it took me hours to get in because of all the fallen trees.

There was such a buzz and photographers were out all over the place.

“That’s when I think newsrooms are at their best, when there is a good live story running and everybody’s committed to it. That’s when the best comes out in everybody.

“I think to some extent that’s replicated in a busy press office. In the Abbey when you’ve got something like the Royal Wedding and everyone’s committed to it. At the time it’s frenetic but afterwards you think it was worth it.

“We have a lot of fun,” he adds.

“I’ve always said unless you can have fun when you’re doing a job, find something else to do.”