Johnny Morris

Johnny Morris

 Me and RailwayStories1 have always shared a passion for the audio works of the Railway Series, so I thought we would be the perfect combination to do an informative and comprehensive review. When I contacted RailwayStories1 he was delighted to help and has written and contributed a huge amount to this piece. I really appreciate the time and effort he has dedicated to this, I know that without his help this review would be nothing like what is presented before you today. So please take your time to read through I am sure you will learn something new.

About Johnny Morris

Ernest John "Johnny" Morris OBE was born on the 20^th of June 1916 in the Welsh town of Newport, Monmouthshire and was a Welsh television presenter. He is known for his BBC children's programmes on the topic of zoology, most notably ‘Animal Magic’. He is also well known for his narration of children’s stories with ‘Tales of the Riverbank’ and ‘The Railway Stories’. ‘Animal Magic’ and ‘The Hot Chestnut Man’ had already won the hearts of many children so Johnny seemed like a good choice to narrate ‘The Railway Series’ stories. However he is quoted in Wilbert’s autobiography ‘The Thomas The Tank Engine Man’ as saying, "I was not all that mad about [the Railway Series books]. They were alright but…" Isabella Wallich (the founder and manager of Delysé Records) managed to persuade Johnny that the sales of the Railway Series books would lend themselves well to record sales, Johnny took up the reigns as the first storyteller, and it is a good thing he did!
The Rev.W.Awdry narrated two of The Railway Series stories (1952), but Johnny Morris was the first proper narrator of the series, he narrated books 1-11, he didn’t need any sound effects he did them all himself! This added to the fun and endearment of his narration’s. His recordings for the Railway Series were released between 1961 and 1966. After book 11 the narration where passed onto Willie Rushton. 
Johnny expressed a love of railways, he was Vice President of the Bluebell Railway (Home of course to Stepney!) in Sussex from its early days in the 1960s until the late 1980s. During this time he attended several anniversaries and landmark events over the first few decades of the railway's existence. He also made two promotional LP's for the Railway in the 1970s.
Johnny Morris died at the age of 82 in 1999, he left behind a large legacy which will be cherished in people’s memories and records for many many years to come.
　

Delysé 


Of the 26 Railway Series volumes that were written by Wilbert, Johnny told the stories of the first eleven, from 'The Three Railway Engines' to 'Percy the Small Engine'. These were released between 1961 and 1966 on the Delysé Records label, which would in time, become part of Decca Records when it was acquired by PolyGram in 1980.

All of his narration’s were pressed onto 7″ vinyl 45 RPM "singles", unlike many other 45s of the time, which were pressed onto polystyrene. Not the white crumbly stuff, but a stiff plastic form dyed black. They were also given the different title of 'The Railway Stories'.


The record's jackets were decorated with crumpled slabs of colour on a white background with an illustration from the book that the stories were from. There were several editions of these records released; some jackets had an older version of the Delysé logo, some had a newer, some had the illustration with rounded corners, some were made of card, some were made of paper and some were laminated. The record label remained the same throughout all these releases (a smiling red engine whose nose was filled when placed on the turntable!). The older releases of the records had a large push-out slot in the engine's face (in order to be compatible with both RCA Victor's and Columbia's record systems), and the newer ones had a solid label.

This was the first time that the famous foreword by the Reverend was printed for the audio format:


"My father was a railway enthusiast and brought me up accordingly. Our home at Box, Wiltshire, was near the Great Western main line and listening to heavy freights clawing up the grade it was not hard to imagine train engine and banker talking to each other, and for me, steam engines developed personality.

So when my son caught measles at the age of three I told him these stories to amuse him. They were not written down at first, I made them up as I went along. But I had to tell them so often, carefully using the same words, that both he and I soon knew them by heart.

It was only later, at my wife's suggestion, that I wrote them down, so that other children might have pleasure from them too."
Decca 


In 1972 (the same year Tramway Engines was released, the last of Wilberts books.) Johnny Morris's stories were re-released on 12″ 33⅓ RPM vinyl albums (LP’s) by Decca Records as part of their "World of Children's Stories" series.

Each record contained the stories from two complete books, one book on each side. The front sleeve illustrations were taken directly from the artwork of the original books and the back of the sleeve featured illustrations of trains of varying complexity by David Anstey. A photograph of Johnny was also printed with the same foreword by the Reverend.

Again, there were several editions of these records released; some had jackets laminated with Clarifoil and had a glossy front and a matt back, others did not have Clarifoil but were relatively shiny nonetheless on the front and back. There were also several variants of record label and inner sleeve.

By the early 1970s, audio cassettes began to become commonplace as more and more people invested in cassette players. Because of this, when Decca released records they often released matching cassettes; this was the case for the Railway Stories.

The cassette versions of Johnny's Decca recordings were the same colour as their corresponding records and featured the same text however only one illustration was used instead of the four tiled illustrations, due of course to the lack of space available on a cassette sleeve.
Argo 

When the time came for the next stories to be told, Johnny was working on something else so Willie Rushton stepped into his stead as the new Railway Stories reader. At this point, Decca moved the "World of Children's Stories" series over to its Argo branch which specialised in non-music recordings, such as voice recordings and tranport recordings (such as Argo's "Transacord" series).

There weren't as many variations of these records released; none were laminated with Clarifoil and there were none of David Anstey's doodle-like drawings either, however, as Willie was a cartoonist, he depicted himself in railway uniform on the back. Willie's record sleeves featured the names of the books that the stories were from.
Johnny, Willie and Argo 


Eventually, both the World of Children's Stories audio series and the original "Volumes" format of organisation were abandoned and Decca continued on to other projects. All of the Railway Stories were transferred to Decca's Argo arm and they were all released again as a series of audio cassettes.

Johnny's recordings were arranged into volumes one to four and Willie's were arranged into three volumes titled "The Railway Stories", "More Railway Stories" and "Further Railway Stories".

Wilbert’s Opinion
Now we all know that Wilbert Awdry was a very hard man to please and understandably so. The Railway Series was his life’s work and he was very protective over it as we have found out, but Johnny Morris got the thumbs up from Awdry and that is an achievement by anyone’s standard. Wilbert "seemed contented with the way his stories were interpreted", he also mentioned that when he should pass away he would love to take a recording of Johnny’s interpretation of Edward and Gordon with him, now that is praise indeed, well done Johnny!

Written by Patrick Foley and 'RailwayStories1'

TTC & RWS1 2012