TONY MORRIS

HIGHLY ORIGINAL 

Tony Morris entertains with his own material, a highly original and varied mix of his own Folk Songs, Poetry, Music and  Story with no regard to "Radio Playability". Never a dull moment.

A ONE-OFF. AN ORIGINAL.

He is said to be a working British Bard in the Ancient Tradition translating to and for the Modern World.  

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 The Resident Poet for BBC Radio York North Yorkshire Folk: “Tony Morris has proved a huge hit” (Michael Brothwell, programme presenter).  

Tony Morris is known for his “Trappy Lad” CD of ironstone mining songs and stories of the  Great Ironstone Rush and his talks on ironstone mining.  Traditional folksong 'you could imagine sung in home or down the mine' (The Link).  

You can listen by clicking www.myspace.com/tomlennard 

Tom Lennard is a character Tony Morris has created for his Play with song, 'Iron Rush'. This is ideal Theatre in Education and has been successfully performed before family audiences in Literary and Science and Technology Festivals and in Village Hall and Museum.

Tony Morris has written and sung songs about Captain William Scoresby of Whitby for a School film project on whaling and his 'Ballad of the Nunnington Worm' is being used for a similar purpose.

As ‘Antonius Sayer of Songs’ Tony Morris's performance of his metrical tales at medieval banquets with Bard’s Harp and Viking Lyre are acclaimed and show only part of his multi-talented, multi-instrumental improvisational skills.  

Tony Morris is proud to be member of both EQUITY and the Musician's Union.

For full review see News and Reviews page.

NEWS  AND REVIEWS PAGE

The Cleveland Ironstone Mining Museum, Skinnigrove, 

The Ryedale Folk Museum, Hutton-le-Hole, 

Folk Devils, Sandgate, Whitby, 

Diamond Music, Flowergate, Whitby,  

Little Apple Book Shop, High Petergate, York.

Ironstone mining in North Yorkshire is part of our industrial history that is all but forgotten. There is an excellent Video/DVD by Craig Hornby ‘A Century In Stone’ and the Cleveland Mining Museum at Skinnigrove and The Ryedale Folk Museum at Hutton-le-Hole [both well worth a visit] otherwise ironstone mining is a dramatic part of our industrial heritage that has been neglected. The Great North Yorkshire Iron Rush of the 1850's was as dramatic as the Californian Gold Rush.

One of the reasons for the neglect is that there were no folksongs to perpetuate the memory of ironstone mining and ironstone miners, as with songs of coal, lead and tin.

While writing the ironstone songs Tony Morris was shocked to be asked, even by people intimately connected with the coal and power Industry, “What did they get from ironstone?”  What they got was the iron that made North Yorkshire, for a time, the Iron and Steel Capital of the World.

Tony Morris hopes that by writing and recording songs about ironstone mining, miners and their associates in a folksong mode he will encourage others to take them up and sing them and  raise awareness of the forgotten ironstone mining industry. As well as including some of the songs in his normal performance sets he has created the Play with song 'Iron Rush' with the character of Tom Lennard, an ironstone miner born 1869 and very much alive today with his own myspace site at www.myspace.com/tomlennard  This is ideal Theatre in Education and has been successfully performed before family audiences in Literary and Science and Technology Festivals and in Village Hall and Museum.As one audience member said recently, "An amazing way to bring history to life."

Tony Morris hopes that by chatting, in performance, whether in Folk Club, Community venue or Schools, about the context of the ironstone mining songs and how he came to write them he will raise the profile of the forgotten industrial history of ironstone mining in Yorkshire and the lives of the miners and their associates and the conditions under which they lived and worked.

To listen to some tracks from 'Trappy Lad'

click  www.myspace.com/tomlennard 

CD of TONY MORRIS'S 2003 Album of Music and Poetry

 'CHANGING TRACKS' 

AVAILABLE AS DOWNLOAD FROM

WOVEN WHEAT  WHISPERS 

 YOU CAN LISTEN TO SAMPLE tracks on 

www.myspace.com/tonymorrismusic 

FOR REVIEW CLICK NEWS AND REVIEWS  

Looking for a poem to read at a Funeral or Memorial?

BOOK of 108 poems by TONY MORRIS  

specially for the purpose of,  with 'how to use' section 

which explains how to personalise each of these funeral poems  for reading aloud at any funeral     when you are saying farewell to a friend.

'Farewell to Friends'  

(price £10 inc. p&p direct from tonymorrispoet@yahoo.co.uk )

'FAREWELL TO FRIENDS'

was written and compiled at the request of a funeral director when the vogue for reading a funeral poem aloud at a funeral or memorial became popular following the success of the film

'Four Weddings and a Funeral'

Because

'Farewell to friends' 

contains such a diversity of poems,

in addition to its use as a handbook for funeral poetry it is also suitable for quiet, private reading by the bereaved.

No one who might be asked to read a poem aloud at a funeral or memorial should be without this book, particularly  those in the caring professions who should always keep a copy of 'Farewell to Friends' handy in their library or filing cabinet.

INTRODUCING - TONY MORRIS -