" The moment I met Morris, I knew we would be more than just good friends, and he obviously felt the same. And so it proved to be.

We shared much in our background: we lived in out-of - the way places, which we loved; we were the same age, with interests in percussion and drums, piano & keyboards, contemporary and mainstream music. The only difference between us in that respect was that Morris was uniquely gifted as a musician in a way - sadly! - that I am not. We also shared an interest in astronomy, archaelogy, geology, vulcanology, and so on. (Some of you may know of the two sets of evocative piano pieces, Stones and Mountains, [dedicated to Jeannie, his fiancee], which he wrote for me to publish, demonstrating the influence of these subjects, as well as his love of the Highlands landscape.) 

Morris liked the personal touch. He wanted a publisher, whom he could phone at any time and talk about his current project or enthusiasm, just as much as about the necessary details of contracts, negotiating with potential performers, registering works with PRS and MCPS, all the unavoidable tedious administrative tasks. It was never a case of harassing his publisher to get on with it; it was always a partnership of friends with the same aims.: "How are you today? What's the weather like over in Lewis? What do you think of this or that? Where should we go from here?" Then in the middle of some musical discussion, it would be: "How are your cows? They would drown if they were over here at the moment, it's raining so hard!" Never a dull moment! - and always time for a laugh or a wry comment on some piece of news or aspect of modern life, or on the state of music in the BBC, or lack of opportunity in Britain, and so on.

At the time of his passing, Morris was working on a series of orchestral pieces called "Microsymphonie", based on astronomical subjects, as well as a choral piece for St George's School in Edinburgh. These remain unfinished, and the sad thing is that Morris had in him plenty of music waiting to be written, - as he said himself, " music that had never been heard before". All the more reason to keep what Morris did write available throughout the world.

Cut off suddenly, one feels, before his proper time, Morris will be sorely missed by me, as much as a friend as a highly individual composer. "