Johnny Morris the Man Who Brought Animal Magic to Millions

Johnny Morris

by John Greeves

The man who bought Animal Magic to millions

Johnny Morris, man of many voices, reporter and entertainer, will be best remembered as the star of Animal Magic which ran for twenty-one years in over 400 editions. Several generations of children were captivated with his rapport and with the show’s animal stars including Dottie the ring-tailed lemur. Ernest John Morris was born 20 June 1916 in Newport South Wales. The son of a postman, Johnny Morris attended Hatherleigh Road School where his first love was music. He learnt to play the violin and together with his father who was a gifted cellist toured South Wales as a child, playing to captivated audiences. When the time came to leave school at fourteen, Johnny Morris planned to make a living on the stage. He joined the local repertory company to gain experience but the 1920s were difficult times and he moved to London when he was seventeen. A succession of jobs followed as a solicitor’s clerk, time keeper on a building site, salesman until he moved away to Wiltshire where he managed a 2,000 acre farm in Aldbourne in Wiltshire owned by the art collector Jimmy Bomford. Here Johnny allowed his interest in animals to develop even further. In 1942 he married fashion model Eileen Monro who was ten years older than him. She had separated from her former husband and relocated to Wiltshire with her two young sons Stuart and Nick. Johnny continued to work as a farm manager looking after 2,000 pigs and 600 cows for £2.50 a week. His break into radio and subsequently television came four years later when he was discovered telling stories in his local pub by the BBC Home Service West Regional producer Desmond Hawkins another local resident of the village. Morris featured in a number of Regional series throughout the 1950s. At the beginning he gave country life talks in the Plug in the Wallseries and featured in a rural-based magazine programme called Johnny Comes to Town. He was often employed on light entertainment programmes as a storyteller or a participant in such programmes as Pass the Salt a weekly broadcast where he tried his hand at a new job like brick laying, litter picking, or collecting fares on a ferry boat. A natural mimic and impersonator, Johnny first appeared on television as The Hot Chestnut Man, where he sat roasting chestnuts and telling a humorous yarn, often with a moral in a West Country accent. In 1960 he began a new series called Tales of The Riverbanka Canadian production which had been imported into Britain. The stories featured Hammy the Hamster, Roderick the Rat, GP the Guinea Pig and assorted friends along the river bank.

He also narrated 1 to 11 of The Railway Stories written by the Rev. W. Awdry, the first eight of which were released in the LP format in 1970s and told tales about Thomas the Tank and other engines. Later he carried this passion for steam railways forward by becoming the Vice President of the Bluebell Railway in Sussex in the 1960s. He attended many anniversaries and landmark events over the first few decades of the Bluebell Railway Preservation Societywhich came into being between 1959 and 1960. He made two promotional LPs for the railway and is still remembered fondly by the society today.

Johnny was an inveterate traveller and his journeys took him all round Britain and to the far reaches of the world. His travel programmes included amongst the many he took part in: Ticket to Turkey (1960), John Morris in Mexico (1968), Johnny Morris North from Lion City (1969) and Oh to be in England (1976).

Perhaps Animal Magic is the programme children and adults most remember. This was the brain child of Pat Beech, a former news editor of the BBC in Bristol and entered a golden era of TV when viewing was a shared by both children and adults alike. Animal Magic was an instant hit that combined action-packed animal spectacular with Johnny’s captivating voices and storytelling. Johnny adopted the role of Zoo Keeper and much of the filming was done at Bristol zoo and later at other zoos around the country. He blended entertainment with education as he chattered with monkeys, fed the sea lions, filed the elephant’s toenails, adding voices all the time to mimic their reactions. Johnny’s appealing manner made him and his creature companions stars with the viewers including Wendy the elephant, Congo the chimpanzee and Dotty the ring-tailed lemur and many others.

There were many hilarious occasions such as the day he washed the elephants only to find the hose pipe grabbed by a curling trunk that then proceeded to soak Johnny and those around him. ‘Life is much more is much more interesting’ he said ‘if it is peppered with people and animals that have got something ‘up’ with them. His love of animals never ceased. Animal Magic ran for twenty years and provided several generations with a keener understanding of their needs and personalities. It was finally abandoned in 1983 when its anthropomorphic approach (ascribing human characteristics to animals) was considered out of date.

Johnny had many facets to his life. In 1982 he was awarded an OBE. In his eighties he also fostered wider concerns and demonstrated as an active environmentalist against the building of the Newbury Bypass. Johnny continued to work all his life and last appeared in a Channel 4 film on television at Christmas 1998 in a silent role playing the zookeeper called The Magic Keeper. When details of a new series for ITV were announced in March of that year he denied he was making a comeback. ‘I don’t know what it means to retire,’ he said. But times were changing and Johnny was weary of the new style of television and broadcasting. The gentleness of Morris's conversations with animals and their replies belonged to a charming, but rapidly vanishing era of television.

As Desmond Hawkins the man who first discovered him put it, ‘Johnny was truly an original, a one-off. ‘He became a star in the world of entertainment and yet he never quite belonged to that world.’ His health was declining. Diabetes continued to dog him. He collapsed at his home in Hungerford, Berkshire and sadly died on the 6 th May 1999 after a drawn-out illness.

He will always be remembered for his common humanity and warmth which endeared him to all those around him. It seems fitting that even in death; the story-telling zookeeper (as we all knew him from our childhood), should be buried with his zookeeper’s hat and with a host of enduring memories.

http://www.bluebell-railway.co.uk/

Acknowledgement: Images courtesy of the Bluebell Railway.

John Greeves is a creative writing tutor. He originally hails from Lincolnshire. He gained a Masters degree at Cardiff University and previously

worked at Sussex University. When he’s not teaching for Continuing and Professional Education, he writes poetry, short stories and features, and runs the occasional workshop.