Tributes paid to TV-am host Mike Morris
Colleagues including Lorraine Kelly have paid tribute to former TV-am presenter Mike Morris, who has died. Moustached Morris was the main male host of the ITV breakfast programme Good Morning Britain in the late 1980s after initially being introduced as a sports presenter. He was also well-known to viewers as a host of Yorkshire Television's Calendar programme. Lorraine said Morris - who was in his mid 60s - made presenting "look easy", adding: "Mike was a delightful man, he was such a generous presenter - he really was brilliant." Anne Diamond, who shared a sofa with him, said: "He was incredibly popular, I think, because he was just like the guy next door." Morris began his career in journalism with the Surrey Comet, after graduating from Manchester University, then specialised in newspaper sports reporting. He went on to work for Thames TV and covered sport for TV-am at its launch in 1983. During his time on the ITV morning programme he interviewed Nelson Mandela shortly after his release from prison and he was the last presenter heard on TV-am during the final programme at the end of 1992. He is thought to have been suffering from cancer.
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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.
An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.