Christopher Morris (news presenter)

Christopher Morris was born in Luton, Bedfordshire, and grew up there and in Penrith, Cumberland. As a jazz enthusiast and drummer, he formed the Delta Jazz Band and opened the Delta Jazz Club in Luton where he played alongside famous traditional jazz groups of the 1950s including Ken Colyer, Chris Barber, Cy Laurie and Humphrey Lyttelton.{{cite book|title=A Hatful of Music|year=2003|publisher=The Book Castle|isbn=1-903747-42-2|pages=53–55, 87–105}} While also playing guitar, he formed a skiffle group within the band and recruited John, Duke of Bedford to play the washboard and tea-chest string bass at a time when he was trying to pay off £4 million in death duties on his stately home, Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire. In his autobiography, A Silver Plated Spoon,{{cite book|title=A Silver Plated Spoon|year=1959|publisher=Cassell & Company|pages=220}} the Duke wrote: "I played the washboard for a visiting skiffle group which has made more people regard me as a human being than anything else I have ever done".

Morris was educated at St. Albans School, in Hertfordshire,{{cite web|title=St Albans School. Profile|url=http://oaconnect.co.uk/profile/m|accessdate=22 November 2013}}{{Dead link|date=November 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Britain's oldest public school, before joining the Luton News in Luton as a proof reader at age 15.{{cite web|title=Christopher Morris on John Sargeant|url=http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/node/30302|work=Press Gazette|accessdate=24 February 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140305185928/http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/node/30302|archive-date=5 March 2014|url-status=dead}} After an apprenticeship of 5 years training as a news reporter and also writing regular weekly columns reviewing films, jazz and pop records, he joined the Daily Sketch, where he was the youngest reporter in Fleet Street. In 1962, he left his career in Fleet Street to gamble on setting up a British freelance news agency in Spain, then under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

For the next 10 years, based in Madrid, he established his reputation as a foreign correspondent for British national, evening and Sunday newspapers including the Daily Mail and Daily Express, Evening News and Evening Standard, Sunday Times, Sunday Mirror and News of the World, and for Independent Television News (ITN) and for BBC News as a television and radio reporter.{{cite news|title=So we set up a newsdesk of our own in the sun|newspaper=UK Press Gazette|date=15 January 1968}} In 1966, Franco ordered Morris to be expelled after he broke the story to the world of the worst nuclear accident in America's military history when a US Air Force B-52 on a Strategic Air Command patrol at the height of the Cold War was involved in a mid-air collision with a refuelling aircraft.{{cite book|title=The Day They Lost The H Bomb|year=1966|publisher=Coward McCann Inc., New York. Library of Congress Catalog Number : 66.29688}} The B-52 jettisoned four H-bombs as it crashed bringing terror and spreading radioactivity around the Mediterranean village of Palomares when two of the nuclear devices cracked open on impact spilling lethal plutonium over a vast area.{{cite news|title=Weird scene on beach in Spain|newspaper=Daily Express|date=18 March 1966}} Only hours later when the Pentagon in Washington admitted the radioactive contamination on Spain's Mediterranean coast was the expulsion order revoked.{{cite web|title=Palomares H bombs disaster|url=http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04102006-115019/unrestricted/jmm_thesis.pdf|accessdate=23 November 2013|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080226223704/http://etd.lib.fsu.edu/theses/available/etd-04102006-115019/unrestricted/jmm_thesis.pdf|archivedate=26 February 2008}}

In 1972, Morris returned to London and joined the BBC staff, soon to be sent back to Spain to report on first, the assassination by the Basque terrorist group ETA of Franco's chosen successor, deputy Prime Minister Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, and, then later, on Franco's own death and funeral. His first war assignment in Cyprus was to end in disaster when a press convoy strayed into a minefield.{{cite book|title=Breaking News|year=2008|publisher=St Martin's Press, New York|isbn=978-0312371180|pages=[https://archive.org/details/breakingnewsstun00flet/page/28 28, 38]|url=https://archive.org/details/breakingnewsstun00flet/page/28}} The Press Association (PA) newsflash on the morning of 8 August 1974, caused chaos and confusion in the BBC Newsroom. It read: "BBC newsman Paul Morris has been killed in a minefield explosion in Cyprus". In fact, Morris was critically wounded.{{cite book|title=A Mad World, My Masters|year=2000|publisher=Macmillan Publishers Ltd|isbn=0-333-72420-8|pages=246}} It was a BBC TV News colleague and sound recordist, Ted Stoddard, who had been killed and six other British and American journalists injured when five anti-personnel mines exploded. Morris came close to death after shrapnel hit him in the chest, collapsing a lung, shattering ribs and paralysing his left arm.{{cite news|title=BBC man killed by mine blast in Cyprus|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|date=9 August 1974}}{{cite news|title=Death under truce flag|newspaper=Daily Express|date=9 August 1974}} After spending months in hospital, and with his arm permanently disabled, he returned to work a year later, and more war assignments for the BBC in the Western Sahara,{{cite news|title=BBC men miss death thanks to red tape|newspaper=Ariel |publisher=BBC |date=31 March 1980}}{{cite news|title=Our trek to Africa's forgotten war zone|newspaper=Ariel |publisher=BBC |date=29 May 1985}} Chad,{{cite news|title=Chad – what war?|newspaper=Ariel |publisher=BBC |date=21 September 1983}} Ghana.{{cite news|title=Gunpoint in Ghana|newspaper=Ariel |publisher=BBC |date=1 March 1983}} Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan, Mozambique, Nicaragua and the Lebanon{{cite news|title=It's on rare occasions like this in war zones that the flesh creeps|newspaper=Broadcast|date=18 February 2000}}{{cite news|title=Shooting on the Frontline|newspaper=UK Press Gazette|date=25 April 1994}}

Among many major stories he reported for BBC TV News was the world's worst oil tanker spill at the time off the Brittany coast in France when the Amoco Cadiz split in two,{{cite news|title=Tanker Amoco Cadiz splits in two|date=24 March 1978 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/24/newsid_2531000/2531211.stm|accessdate=22 November 2013}} and the car bomb explosion at the Houses of Parliament in London that killed Airey Neave{{cite news|title=Car bomb kills Airey Neave|date=30 March 1979 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/30/newsid_2783000/2783877.stm|accessdate=22 November 2013}} the Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary and war hero who was the first British prisoner to escape from Colditz{{cite book|title=50 Years of BBC Television News|year=2004|publisher=BBC Worldwide Ltd/BBC News|pages=36}}

On 23 February 1981, he was back in Madrid, and by chance the only journalist inside the Cortes, the Spanish parliament, when rebel civil guards burst in during an attempted coup to oust King Juan Carlos.{{cite news|title=Coup attempt in Spain|newspaper=BBC Television News|date=23 February 1981}} Along with more than 300 Spanish MPs, Morris and his BBC TV crew were held hostage at gunpoint for several hours before being released. His eyewitness account and film of the shoot-out has become an historic record of the day democracy defeated dictatorship in Spain.{{cite news|title=Gunpoint dictator, Colonel leads Spain revolt|newspaper=Daily Express|date=24 February 1981}}{{cite news|title=Spain: TV reporter tells of gun terror|newspaper=Daily Mirror|date=24 February 1981}}

Throughout the Falkland Islands conflict Morris was in Buenos Aires, one of only a handful of British journalists allowed into Argentina to report from the enemy side during a war.{{cite news|title=The Falklands War|newspaper=BBC Television News|date=April–May 1982}}{{cite news|title=Reading behind the lines|newspaper=Broadcast|date=10 May 1982}} |{{cite book|title=The Road Taken|year=2004|publisher=Hutchinson London|isbn=0091799678|pages=[https://archive.org/details/roadtaken0000buer/page/211 211–212]|url=https://archive.org/details/roadtaken0000buer/page/211}}{{cite news|title=Roaming around the world's trouble spots|newspaper=Herts Advertiser|date=16 March 1984}} Immediately after the war ended, he was assigned to Israel to cover the invasion of southern Lebanon.{{cite book|title=The First Casualty|year=1989|publisher=Pan Books Ltd|isbn=0330308793|pages=432}} When the BBC decided to switch him to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) side he was trapped inside West Beirut with the guerrilla forces of Yasser Arafat and under daily shellfire from the Israeli Defense Force (IDF).{{cite news|title=Life in the city of taut nerves|newspaper=Ariel |publisher=BBC |date=4 August 1982}} While in Beirut, Morris broke the news of the massacre of 3,500 Palestinians by Lebanese Phalangist militias in Sabra and Shatila.{{cite news|title=Ariel Sharon feared genocide charges over Israel's role in Sabra and Shatila|url=http://www.haaretz.com/news/israeli-elections-2013/whos-who/ariel-sharon-feared-genocide-charges-over-Israel-s-role-in-Sabra-and-Shatila.premium-1.505001|work=Haaretz|accessdate=27 November 2013}} He managed to smuggle video-recorded evidence of the event to Damascus in neighbouring Syria where the pictures were sent by satellite to London. The pictures caused worldwide protests and almost led to the downfall of the Israeli government.{{cite web|title=Truth about Israel's role in 1982 Sabra-Shatila massacre of Palestinians|url=http://www.citizenactionmonitor.wordpress.com/tag/truth|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203000208/http://citizenactionmonitor.wordpress.com/tag/truth/|url-status=dead|archive-date=3 December 2013|accessdate=27 November 2013}} Defence minister Ariel Sharon, later to become Prime Minister, was forced to resign over complicity in the refugee camp attacks.

During the Iran-Iraq war, after being the first journalist to report the fall of the key oilport of Khorramshahr,{{cite news|title=Battle of Khorramshahr|newspaper=BBC Television News|date=September–November 1980}} Ayatollah Khalkhali broadcast on Iranian TV putting a price for Morris' capture and described him as "the serpent of imperialism and international Zionism"{{cite news|title="Satanic" reporter upsets Ayatollah|newspaper=Ariel |publisher=BBC |date=19 November 1980}} Evading capture by Republican Guards, he was at the frontline with the forces of Saddam Hussein to witness their use of chemical and biological weapons.{{cite web|title=Chemical weapons use in Iran-Iraq war|url=http://www.fas.org/irp/gulf/cia/960702/72566_01.htm|accessdate=27 November 2013}}{{cite web|title=CIA files prove America helped Saddam as he gassed Iran|url=https://foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/25/secret_files_prove_America_helped_Saddam_as_he_gassed_Iran|work=Foreign Policy|accessdate=27 November 2013}}{{Dead link|date=November 2019 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}

In the 1991 Gulf War with Sky News, he was the first British television journalist to reach Kuwait City on the day of liberation.{{cite news|title=Liberation Day Kuwait|publisher=Sky News|date=26 February 1991}} He reported on the massacre at the Mutla Ridge when coalition forces intercepted the retreating Iraqi army.{{cite news|title=Iraqi Army flees Kuwait|publisher=Sky News|date=March 1991}} Morris also reported from the various frontlines during the civil war in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,{{cite book|title=The Angel of Mostar|year=1994|publisher=Hutchinson, London|isbn=0-09-178927-3|pages=[https://archive.org/details/angelofmostarone00beck/page/87 87]|url=https://archive.org/details/angelofmostarone00beck/page/87}} including Srebrenica where 7,500 Muslims were rounded up and shot by the advancing Serb forces led by General Ratko Mladic.{{cite news|title=Wars in former Yugoslavia and Bosnia genocide in Srebrenica|publisher=Sky News|year=1995}}

Morris was the only television journalist to accompany Bob Geldof on all his visits to the famine-stricken countries of Africa after Band Aid and Live Aid when his reports for BBC TV News helped to raise £70 million in aid.{{cite book|title=With Geldof in Africa|year=1985|publisher=Times Books|isbn= 0-7230-0279-7}}{{cite book|title=Is That It?|year=1986|publisher=Sidgwick and Jackson Ltd|isbn=0-283-99362-6|pages=various}}{{cite news|title=Close-up on the pop crusader|newspaper=Daily Express|date=21 December 1985}} Other major assignments he covered for the BBC and Sky News was the first television interview with Anthony Blunt{{cite web|title=Anthony Blunt spy case|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/cambridgespies/7806.shtml|accessdate=22 November 2013}} after the master spy's exposure by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher; Spain's re-opening of the border with the Rock of Gibraltar{{cite news|title=Spain opens border with the Rock|date=15 December 1982 |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/15/newsid_2559000/2559887.stm|accessdate=22 November 2013}} 13 years after it was closed by Franco; the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco;{{cite news|title=San Francisco earthquake|publisher=Sky News|date=17 October 1989}} the fall of the Berlin Wall;{{cite news|title=Fall of the Berlin Wall|publisher=Sky News|date=9–14 November 1989}} the attempted coup in Russia against president Mikhail Gorbachev;{{cite news|title=Coup against Gorbachev|publisher=Sky News|date=18 August 1991}} the release after 27 years in prison and first face-to-face interview with Nelson Mandela.{{cite web|title=Christopher Morris interviews Nelson Mandela|date=23 November 2011 |url=http://gettyimages.co.uk/detail/video/christopher-morris-interviews-nelson-mandela-sky-news-footage/134118890|accessdate=11 December 2013}} the assassinations of Indira Gandhi{{cite news|title=Assassination and funeral of Indira Gandhi|newspaper=BBC Television News|date=31 October 1984}} and later her son Rajiv Gandhi;{{cite news|title=Rajiv Gandhi assassinated|publisher=Sky News|date=21 May 1991}} the election of Bill Clinton for his first term as US president;{{cite news|title=Election victory and inauguration of President Bill Clinton|publisher=Sky News|date=3 November 1992}} the murder trial of O. J. Simpson;{{cite news|title=O. J. Simpson murder trial|publisher=Sky News|date=2 November 1994}} the murder of the Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace shot dead outside his mansion in Miami;{{cite web|title=Gianni Versace murdered|website = YouTube| date=23 September 2007 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozrqbhCGzyE|accessdate=22 November 2013}} and the handover of Hong Kong to China.{{cite news|title=Handover of Hong Kong to China|publisher=Sky News|date=1 July 1997}} He has also reported on several Royal tours for BBC Television with Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh in Canada{{cite news|title=Royal tour and Commonwealth Games, Edmonton|newspaper=BBC Television News|year=1978}} and Australia, with Prince Charles and Prince Harry in Africa,{{cite news|title=Royal tour in South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland|publisher=Sky News|date=October 1997}} the royal wedding and honeymoon of Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales{{cite book|title=The Kindness of Strangers|year=2002|publisher=Headline Book Publishing|isbn=0-7553-1072-1|pages=246}} and on their first-ever royal tour together in Australia and New Zealand.{{cite news|title=Royal tour of Australia and New Zealand|newspaper=BBC Television News|year=1983}} He was the Sky News commentator at RAF Northolt for the return of the princess after she was killed in Paris, and later for her funeral at Althorp.{{cite news|title=Death and funeral of Princess Diana|publisher=Sky News|date=31 August 1997}} While at BBC TV News, Morris was the newsreader on the day Lord Mountbatten was murdered by the IRA.{{cite news|title=IRA bomb kills Lord Mountbatten|newspaper=BBC Television News|date=27 August 1979}} The audience that night of 26 million is still the record for a British TV news bulletin as ITN was on strike. It's a record unlikely ever to be surpassed with the proliferation of so many digital satellite channels.

For almost two years in 1988 he returned abroad, this time as Australia correspondent for the BBC setting up the Corporation's first TV news studios in Sydney, as he had done previously 21 years before in Madrid.{{cite news|title=Aussie office is on the map|newspaper=BBC TV "Inside News"|date=November 1988}}{{cite news|title=Australia bureau|newspaper=UK Press Gazette|date=13 June 1988}} He was also appointed Australasia correspondent for The Times newspaper.{{cite book|title=20 Years of Breaking News|year=2009|publisher=HarperCollins Publishers|isbn=9780007835560|pages=145}} He joined Sky News in 1989 for the channel launch,{{cite news|title=It'll be all right on the night. The £1.5 billion venture to turn the nation's viewers|newspaper=Daily Express|date=3 February 1989}} and for 11 years he was both Senior Foreign Correspondent and one of the main News Anchors presenting over 10,000 live bulletins.{{cite news|title=Morris latest journalist to quit Sky News|newspaper=Press Gazette|date=18 February 2000}}{{cite book|title=UK Broadcasters Directory of Presenters|date=27 February 2014|publisher=Presenter Promotions|isbn=978-0-9523518-6-3}} He returned as a newsreader with BBC News 24 before launching OmniVision,{{cite web|title=OmniVision|website = IMDb|url=https://www.imdb.com/company/co0213924/?ref_=tt_dt_co-Om(gb)}} an independent TV production company based at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire.{{cite web|title=Former BBC man takes helm at OmniVision|url=http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/node/26846|work=Press Gazette|accessdate=24 February 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140305192448/http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/node/26846|archive-date=5 March 2014|url-status=dead}} As a producer and director, commissions included a television series, Only Food and Forces filmed in Afghanistan, Oman, Norway, the Falkland Islands and the United Kingdom. He also produced and directed documentaries on one of Britain's most distinguished actors, Sir John Mills: A Century in Films, in his last interview just before he died{{cite web|title=Sir John Mills: A Century in Films|website=IMDb|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1095200|accessdate=13 March 2005}} and another, Kate Winslet: Starmaker to Superstar, about the career of the Oscar-winning actress from the Reading charity theatre group Starmaker{{cite web|title=Starmaker Theatre Company|url=http://www.starmakeruk.org|accessdate=9 October 2013}} to Hollywood fame. Morris is also the author of a best-selling book The Day They Lost The H Bomb about the 1966 US military disaster in Spain.{{cite book|title=The Writers Directory|date=27 February 2014|publisher=St James Press Limited|isbn=9780230573246}}{{cite book|title=The Writer's Handbook|date=27 February 2014|publisher=Macmillan Publishers Limited|isbn=978-0230-57324-6}} In his last OmniVision documentary, The Curse of America's H Bombs, he re-visited Palomares to assess the continuing radioactive fall-out from the nuclear accident.{{cite book|title=Men of Achievement|date=27 February 2014|publisher=Melrose Press Limited|isbn=978-0900-332-28-9}}{{cite book|title=Dictionary of International Biography|date=27 February 2014|publisher=Melrose Press Limited|isbn=978-0900-332-32-6}}

Christopher is married to Mary{{cite web|title=Mary Morris|url=https://www.linkedin.com/pub/mary-morris/b/7b9/22b|accessdate=12 October 2013}} (née Frawley), retired Operations Director of Knightsbridge,{{cite web|title=Knightsbridge Care Home|url=https://www.barchester.com/Care-Homes/Ireland/County-Meath/Trim/knightsbridge-care-home.htm}} a care village, nursing home and medical centre in Trim, County Meath, Ireland. Mary is the mother of 3 children: Owen, Lisa and Lesley. His first marriage was to Georgina (née Whitehead) after they met while working at the Luton News. Georgina died in 2005 from Huntington's disease, a degenerative illness with no cure. Christopher and Georgina had a daughter, Lisa.

• Golden Nymph, Monte Carlo International Television Festival, 1983{{cite web|title=Christopher Morris: Biography and Images|url=http://tvnewsroom.co.uk/people/christopher-morris-3685/|work=TV Newsroom|date=15 September 2006 |accessdate=22 November 2013}}{{cite news|title=BBC scoops premier prize|newspaper=UK Press Gazette|date=20 February 1984}}{{cite news|title=The BBC and Yorkshire win prizes at Monte Carlo|newspaper=The Stage and Television Today|date=16 February 1984}}
• Silver Award, International Film and Television Festival of New York, 1983. Refugee Exodus from Nigeria.{{cite news|title=Silver award for Morris|newspaper=UK Press Gazette|date=12 December 1983}}
• Gulf War medal, 1991. Ministry of Defence accredited war correspondent with Royal Air Force throughout air attack missions, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
• Liberation of Kuwait medal, Saudi Arabia, 1991. Sky News reports accompanying Saudi forces on day of liberation, Kuwait City
• Kuwait Liberation Medal, Kuwait, 1991
• BAFTA, 1995, Television, Children's Programme, Factual: As Seen On TV{{cite web |title=Television {{!}} Children's Programme - Factual in 1995 |url=https://awards.bafta.org/award/1995/television/childrens-programme-factual |website=BAFTA Awards |access-date=9 January 2022}}{{cite web |title=Television in 1995 |url=https://awards.bafta.org/award/1995/television |website=BAFTA Awards |access-date=9 January 2022}}

• The Big Catch, published by the Angley Book Company, Maidstone, Kent. 1966
• The Day They Lost The H-Bomb, published by Coward-McCann, Inc. New York. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number : 66-29688
• El Dia Que Perdieron La Bomba, published by Plaza & Janes, S.A. Barcelona. Deposito Legal: B. 20.033 – 1967

• Do They Know It's Christmas – Bob Geldof in Africa, BBC-1. 26 December 1985.

• Only Food and Forces, OmniVision. 6 x 30 minutes TV series. 2002.
• Sir John Mills : A Century in Films, OmniVision. 2005.
• Kate Winslet : Starmaker to Superstar, OmniVision. 2009.
• The Curse of America's H Bombs, OmniVision. 2012.

• Bosnia : The Tragic Divide, Sky News. 31 May 1993.
• Caught Between The Lines, Sky News. 21 June 1993.
• Northern Ireland : The Unholy Divide, Sky News. 15 November 1993.
• South Africa : The Road to Multi-Racial Democracy, Sky News. 1994.
• The Flight of Trevor Jones, Sky News. 1994.
• Rwanda : War and Exodus, Sky News. 1994.
• The Trial of O. J. Simpson, Sky News. 42 x 30 minutes TV series. 1995.
• One Man One Vote, Sky News. 28 April 1996.
• From Opium to Opulence, Sky News. 23 June 1997.
• Hong Kong Handover, Sky News. 6 July 1997.
• Elvis 20 Years On, Sky News. 23 August 1997.

• This is England '86 (Morris appeared as himself in this movie)

{{Reflist|2}}

• [http://www.tvnewsroom.co.uk/people/christopher-morris-3685 Sky News, Past Staff]

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Category:1938 births

Category:BBC newsreaders and journalists

Category:English television presenters

Category:Sky News newsreaders and journalists

Category:English war correspondents

Category:English male journalists

Category:English reporters and correspondents

Category:Living people

Category:English writers

Category:People from Luton