“Look in the Arab News!” suggested a friend — and today I can call up that invaluable grid of prayer times with a single click on www.arabnews.com.

We were planning a trip to inspect the fabulous sandstone tombs of Madain Saleh and we wondered what we needed to pack for the expedition — well, the Arab News travel page ran a detailed article that told us exactly what we needed to take along.

Most exciting and dramatic of all, it was Arab News that kept us in touch through the tense events of November 1979 when the Grand Mosque was seized by extremists. There was a news embargo initially, but once this was lifted, Arab News was adventurous and probing by the cautious standards of the time, publishing the words and the pictures that recounted the bitter battle to the outside world.

Arab News has been my loyal companion and friend through eight happy years observing life in the Kingdom, and I welcome the ways that the newspaper has changed — particularly the campaigning note that it has sounded under its current Editor in Chief Khaled Almaeena, investigating and reporting bravely on subjects that were once taboo: The 2002 fire in the girls’ school in Makkah, the 2008 case of the Qatif girl, and the newspaper’s recent enquiries into the corruption and mismanagement behind the catastrophic floods in Jeddah.

In all these controversial episodes Arab News has sent out its young reporters to push for the real story, playing its part in the campaign for openness that has characterized the reign of King Abdullah. There are important battles that are still to be fought in this crucial area of Saudi press freedom — and perhaps we might wonder what we can hope to see in the course of the next 35 years. Can we expect that the Saudi media will one day criticize not only the conduct of certain foreign governments, but also the policies of the government here at home? Only God is perfect. It will certainly be a welcome day when Saudi officials who make mistakes at any level will find themselves personally named and held to account.

The Kingdom is changing dramatically, and as those changes come about, let us hope that the green pages will continue to provide us with that access to the truth that is the basis of every healthy society.

— Robert Lacey is the best-selling British author of “The Kingdom,” his classic history of Saudi Arabia, which he wrote while living in Jeddah from 1979-81. He returned in 2006 and has been living here ever since, researching and writing his modern sequel, “Inside the Kingdom”, published last year in New York and London to widespread critical approval. Lacey has also been working as script consultant on the acclaimed new IMAX film, “Arabia,” the first major movie to be shot 100 percent in Saudi Arabia.