Words: Don Morley; John Moffat & Stuart Barker

Photographs: Don Morley; Iain Lawrie; Canon Press Agency

There can be few photographers that can match the talents of motor-sport’s most revered professional ‘snapper’ who has covered not only motorcycle events, but also a whole array of sporting and international incidents world-wide.

The professional photographer is Don Morley, from Reigate in Surrey, a self-confessed motorcycle racing enthusiast who, as a young man, simply didn’t have the funds at his disposal to go racing, so took up riding trials riding by way of consolation.

Don Morley: ”I’ve worked with Don Morley for many years now and I’ve never met a more fascinating man. I could listen to his stories for hours, but I have to drag them out of him as he’s also the least boastful man I know. There’s a reason Don is called the ‘Godfather of Action Sports Photography’ – he practically invented it. He has covered MotoGP, Formula 1, world cup finals, Wimbledon finals, and the Olympics, to name just a few. He even became good friends with Muhamad Ali. But he’s so much more than just a sports photographer. Don shot the stills for the famous golf match in ‘Goldfinger’, he photographed The Beatles on their first UK tour, he was headhunted my Margaret Thatcher for her election campaign in 1979, he’s been shot at in war zones, and he was the only photographer who managed to get inside the compound during the 1972 Olympic Games tragedy in Munich. If you knew him, I’m sure you’d listen to his stories all day long too! – Stuart Barker

Don Morley originally from Derbyshire, was born in late January 1937. He attended “…a rather expensive private school called Derby Diocesan”.

Don takes up the story – “I was about thirteen but not a good pupil and it was very old-fashioned and strict, so I got disciplined every day. I was running a business at school buying ‘tuck’ from Woolworths and then selling it on at school for a small profit. They sent for my father and suggested he took me away, so after a good hiding I was sent to a brand new school called Littleover Secondary Modern, still a building site, it would become the first secondary modern in Derbyshire, and it was massive. I wasn’t much into school and, as yet, it only had one classroom. I soon realised I could go in the morning, call out my name for the register, then clear off and play truant for the rest of the day. I did this for the following two years, other than for the art and sport classes”.

Young Morley won the art prize each year until he left school and represented Derbyshire Schools at national level as a high jumper, winning the championship in his final year and as a middle distance runner. Morley left school at fifteen without any qualifications.

Morley – “I think this rather broke my parent’s hearts as both were university educated”.

The attraction to photography came first, then came motorcycling.

“At a friend’s suggestion, we cycled to a road race meeting at Osmaston Manor, up-hill all the bloody way for about eighteen miles and I hated cycling, I still do, but the race meeting and the aroma of the Castrol R and dope just blew me away. In short, I was hooked and would eventually race there myself, whereas the friend who wanted to go was completely unimpressed and never went again!”

Still a youth, Don bought his first motorcycle with a friend, a 1928 BSA 500cc ‘Sloper’, but kept it at the friend’s house knowing his father would disapprove, with thoughts of converting it into a racer. When testing it out on the road, young Morley was charged with riding under age, no insurance, no tax, no horn, you name it. Because he was under age, it was his father, rather than Don that was summonsed to go to court. The BSA was subsequently dispatched to the scrap yard!

Don Morley’s first job was not what his parents had in mind. He had caught the photography bug by the age of eleven and aspired to become a Fleet Street press photographer. This horrified his father who was managing director of a Derby electrical engineering firm. Morley Senior had pulled strings to enrol Don into an electrical engineering apprenticeship with London, Midland and Scottish railways, just when it was all becoming British Railways Board, at the Derby Locomotive Works.

Morley – “I must say I loved it at LMS, but I was supposed to go to night school three nights per week and one full day as part of the apprenticeship, but instead and unknown to father, I signed on for three nights a week studying photography at Derby College of Art, now the University of Derby. By then I was already freelancing on a regular basis for The Motorcycle, Motorcycling, plus local and national newspapers”.

Morley was by now earning much more at photography than as an apprentice engineer, his first commissioned feature for Sports Illustrated in America before he was seventeen. At twenty-one and at the end of his apprenticeship, he thought himself a free agent.

Morley – “I said right Dad, I have done it your way, now I am going to do it mine! I’m chucking the engineering job in so I can be a full-time photographer. This did not quite work out how I expected though for he said, OK son, but get out of my house”.

Displaced, Morley took up residence in a shared dormitory in a lorry-driver’s hostel, which was rough, but was offered a student grant to do a two year full-time degree level course on photography, again at Derby College of Art.

Morley – “I joined The Pathfinders & Derby MCC and the Derby Phoenix as a youth and though without a machine, I helped out at trials, scrambles & road-races. I finally did legally get myself another motorcycle in 1953, and subsequently acquired a 500T trials Norton on which I went to work, trialled, scrambled and even road raced and did my courting on. I became close friends with world racing champion Bill Lomas; John ‘Moon-eyes’ Cooper; David and Jon Tye; Norman Storrar and Barrie Rodgers, my wife and I became godparents to Barrie’s eldest daughter”.

Don’s professional sports photography career began back in 1953, prior to being employed to take photographs for the newly established Motor Cycle News in 1957. He got the job almost by accident as their photographer covering the Isle of Man TT races had taken ill and Don took his place.

This was the era of the glass plate photographic format. They were supplied with six double dark slides which meant only twelve images could be taken by staff photographers. These had to be returned for developing to the newspaper. It was a rule that of the number allocated, one plate was to be kept in reserve, just in case the photographer came across an incident on travelling back from the race meeting or event being covered. The penalty for non-compliance was dismissal.

Nowadays, digital camera systems allow the photographer to take a series of shots and simply delete the ones not required in an instant. Not so in the early days of Don Morley’s career; he developed all his own work and coped with glass negatives and then thirty-five millimetre roll film with manual aperture settings. It must be a bit like riding an old four-stroke with manual advance retard and choke levers compared to a modern fuel injected two-stroke, except more complicated.

Morley’s work remains highly sought after, covering so many big events in a career that spanned almost sixty years. Joining forces in October 1975 with Tony Duffy, they founded ‘All Sport Photographic Agency’ which was the ‘go to’ company for sports images and advertising images from the early nineteen-seventies until the middle nineteen-nighties. All Sport was formed out of the demise of ‘Sports World’ magazine, Don being their chief photographer. Sports World had folded and rather than take redundancy, the astute Morley bought their photo archive which dated back to the 1930s. All Sport is now Getty Images and has retained some All Sport staff.

Pick up a back copy of any major sports magazine or periodical and no doubt the accreditation ‘All Sport/Don Morley’ will be seen in small letters at the foot or up the side in some cases, of stunning images.

Over the years, photographers such as Barry Robinson, Brian Holder, Alan Vines, Brian ‘Nick’ Nicholls, Gordon Francis, Len Thorpe and of course Eric Kitchen have taken some absolutely wonderful photos of racing, trials and scrambles riders in action. Morley was just that notch different; he covered more than trials and scrambles. Don covered just about everything else on two and four wheels, plus athletics and armed conflicts. Morley was a true all-round professional photographer.

Morley – “I wasn’t a sports photographer until later in life. I was actually a news photographer covering wars and such-like. I covered the Irish troubles in Belfast for the Guardian and even had the inconvenience of having my hotel blown up”.

Don was never backwards at coming forwards, he was more than capable at pushing himself forward to get to the heart of the action and ultimately to get that single breath-taking image. Morley was an out-and-out rule bender. Sometimes he even broke the rules, to reach his goal, to get that perfect shot. Be that an Isle of Man winner, a pole-vaulter, a sprinter, it didn’t really matter. Don had an uncanny ability, nay gift, to press the button and capture a moment in time that lesser mortals could only dream of.

The anecdotes involving Don Morley are what folk lore is made of. There was the incident when Morley had broken his leg while testing Graham Noyce’s factory Honda motocrosser. This sparked a chain reaction of incidents.

Because his leg failed to heal properly, Don jettisoning his crutches and took a chance and boarded an aircraft after the Spanish GP, hoping that no-one would notice.

Morley – “I covered the whole Spanish GP with help from Kenny Roberts who carried my camera kit around when he wasn’t racing. When I got on the aircraft I discovered that all the emergency seats had been taken and I couldn’t get myself into the seat I had been allocated.”

The stewardesses saw this, cottoned on and approached Morley and asked him to leave the aircraft. Don refused, as he wanted to go home as quickly as possible. It was a well-known fact among racing circles that Morley and Barry Sheene didn’t always hit it off as individuals. Sheene had seen what was unfolding, stood up into the aisle and announced that if Don wasn’t allowed to stay on board, then all the other passengers, most of them factory riders homeward bound, would leave the aircraft in support.

That action by Barry Sheene and the others on the aircraft showed the respect that Morley had earned amongst the hard-nosed racing community, even from Sheene himself.

Morley – “Barry took something I wrote once to heart, that didn’t help things, but he was a great rider and I actually had a great deal of respect for him. Not long before he died, he came to see me to get an old photo I had taken of him for something and I think that was to draw a line in the sand.”

During his convalescence after the original accident with the Noyce factory Honda, a photo shoot in 1979 caused even more problems. It involved New Zealander, Dennis Ireland, an up and coming rider who at the time raced a Suzuki at GP level. Having just won the Belgian GP, the shoot was set up for publicity purposes prior to the October’s Brands Hatch International event. Ireland had initially planned to run his machine over a few laps to check if a throttle-sticking issue had been resolved by his mechanic, which had occurred at the previous weekend’s race at Oulton Park. The practice session had been cancelled, but Ireland took the bike from his van to do the tests in the pit-lane area. As it transpired, the sticking throttles matter had not been successfully resolved.

Don, still on crutches, positioned himself in the pit-lane with his camera at the ready. Ireland was to ride his RG500 past Don for a series of shots. However, the early version of the RG500 Suzuki was a bit of an animal of a motorcycle, suddenly all four throttles jammed wide open unleashing the full ninety-four brake-horse power and he couldn’t shut the bike down. The Suzuki reared straight up, pitching Ireland off and Morley had nowhere to go; he was the proverbial sitting duck. Thinking quickly, he threw himself to the ground to try to avoid contact, but the wayward Suzuki hammered into Don.

Ireland was catapulted into a concrete post and was much less fortunate; he suffered multiple injuries which confined him to a wheelchair for many weeks and several months of operations and physiotherapy.

Morley: “I literally heard every bone crack in Dennis’s body and I thought I was going to die, my immediate thought was I hope to hell someone gets the film out of the camera and processes it! Unfortunately even although he went on to win the senior TT, Dennis Ireland was never really the same competitor after that photo shoot accident, it’s such a shame, the whole incident was so regrettable, just one of those things. It shortened an extremely promising racing career. He did go on to marry the nurse who looked after him during his recovery.”

“My wife took me to Sidcup hospital where Dennis was a patient. His injuries were so severe, there were pins, rods and brackets through his still open-wounds literally everywhere and of course he was very heavily sedated. But he still managed to ask me if I got the picture. I had a print of it with me but did not think he would want reminding of it. So anyway, I showed it to him and he thought it was wonderful.”

True to form, Don had pressed the shutter button as the wayward Suzuki with Ireland still on board hurtled towards him. The multi award-winning image taken that day is regarded as one of the most iconic from racing. Broken leg, but the image had been captured, now that’s the mark of a true a true professional at work. The award-winning photo was sold world-wide and Morley, rather than profit from it himself, donated the earnings from it directly to Ireland.

What is not generally known is that Don attended the fateful and tragic 1972 Games of the Twentieth Olympiad at Munich, Germany to take photos of the various sports. Subsequently there was the incident which became known as the ‘Munich massacre’ in which eleven Israeli athletes and coaches plus a German police officer were killed by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September.

Tipped off by a British athlete, Don realised that there was something dreadfully amiss given the sudden upsurge in security, which clamped down the Olympic village. Undeterred and keeping his cool, he scaled the security fence to reach an accommodation block, a dangerous and perhaps foolhardy act, given the circumstances. To his surprise, none of the security personnel challenged him, so he just kept on taking photographs for around ten hours, only feet away from the hostages and terrorists until day-break.

Don recalls the incident: “My only regret about the Munich incident was that I wasn’t equipped with a set of bolt croppers, so that I could have cut a hole in the fence and did the job properly.”

Don Morley made a good living out of taking photographs, which is nothing to be ashamed of; it is an occupation like any other. To be very good at it, some would argue he was the best, which in itself is the work of a true professional. He only gives photos without payment in return, usually to the person who is the subject. Rarely are his images used without payment and conditions. Don values his hard work and his copyright and protects it, likened to a mother tiger giving protection to its young.

Scottish amateur photographer, Iain Lawrie from Kinlochleven has been taking photographs of the Scottish trials for nearly forty years and had taken a very good photograph of Don riding his ex-works 250cc Anglian in 1995 at the Pre’65 Scottish. Don had spotted it on the Trials Guru website and enquired if he could buy a copy from the photographer. Iain was suitably delighted to hear of Morley’s request and without hesitation, furnished Don a high resolution copy, free of charge.

Lawrie – “To have someone of the stature of Don Morley compliment your work is a great honour indeed, I was more than delighted to furnish him with a copy of the photo I took of him.”

There would be few amongst the racing fraternity that have not heard of Don Morley, they knew who he was and the standard of his work, first class, world class.

The riders would spot Don on a corner or at the infield clicking away, they knew exactly where he would be during a practice session.

Morley has a weighty collection of images taken during qualifying and practice sessions of riders at racing speed giving him more than just a dainty ‘thumbs-up’. Many riders liked playing to the camera, Don’s camera. Morley’s photos enhanced the rider’s public image, something professional riders valued as it opened doors to sponsors.

Don Morley is a proficient writer; he set about writing books about individual marques and the sport of trials in general. Three books, to which he owns the copyright, originally published by Osprey for their collector’s series, were ‘Classic British Trials Bikes’; ‘Classic British Two-Stroke Trials Bikes’ and ‘Classic Spanish Trials Bikes’. These were best sellers and now are highly sought after by collectors and command a high price if you can find a copy.

Morley also wrote for the Classic motorcycle magazines, Classic Bike and SuperBike magazine of which he was a long term GP columnist. His advantage being that he knew most of the established stars both current and of yesteryear, so the lack of suitable material was never an issue.

One such article which Don wrote for Classic Bike, covered a back-to-back test of the ex-Gordon Jackson factory short-stroke 350 AJS, registered VYW659, against a standard 350 Matchless G3C of the same era. He explained the technical differences between the two motorcycles. He spent a considerable time analysing the tweaks that the factory rider’s machines were subjected to. This included the front fork internals and frame geometry as well as the carburation set ups. Secrets were revealed and myths exploded. The reader being further captivated by Morley’s mouth-watering photographs of course.

A keen trials rider, Don was at heart a frustrated road racer, but trials being the most affordable of motor-sports he made the best of it. Over the years, he obtained a variety of ex-factory machines and even parts of ex-works bikes. His love of the sport encouraged him to take up writing, after all a picture paints a thousand words and had literally thousands of images to choose from.

Morley has a soft spot for Royal Enfield motorcycles and the successes of Johnny Brittain on his factory Bullet which carried the registration number HNP331. He even owned the ex-factory 350 followed by one of the last versions, a factory 500cc Bullet with magnesium motor and the final 250 bearing that number. The bike was then stolen so Don bought the ex-Peter Fletcher 250 which had the 250RE plate, straight after the Scottish, still covered in trial remnants and carrying its competition number plates.

Don claims that he, along with some others, were the true founders of the Pre’65 movement having ridden HNP331 in the inaugural Talmag Four-Stroke Trial as early as 1973.

Don appeared in the BBC television documentary, ‘Perpetual Motion’ screened in 1992, narrated by actor Warren Clarke which covered the history of the Royal Enfield from Redditch to Bombay where the motorcycle is still produced by Enfield India Ltd. Controversially, Don’s view was that: “…the Royal Enfield Bullet was the most successful heavyweight trials bike, of all time.” Don’s opinion was based on the many successes of Johnny Brittain in trials events throughout the nineteen-fifties.

When the Sammy Miller developed Bultaco Sherpa became available in early 1965, Don was one of the first converts. Like many riders of that era, his results improved dramatically, put down to the handling and power delivery of the well-sorted Spanish machine.

For his own amusement, Don built his own trials machines such as his BSA B40, to try out ideas of his own. He was also quick to embrace the Pre’65 scene when it came on stream in the late nineteen seventies, riding a very nice ex-Brian ‘Tiger’ Payne, AJS 16C, a late model short-stroke AJS, plus of course Royal Enfields.

Back then all the machines were genuine old trials motorcycles; there were no replicas to speak of.

Putting Don Morley’s lifetime achievements into context, he wrote twenty-one books of which fourteen were on motorcycling, motorcycles and motorcycle sport; plus six more other books on specialist photography.

To quote Scottish motorcycling journalist, Stuart Barker: “In short, Don Morley has been there, done that and got the T-shirt when it comes to photography. He’s even written 16 books to accompany his pictures ranging from technical biking manuals to books on table tennis! There’s nothing of any significance on the planet that has escaped Morley’s lens and he’s won countless awards for his work. His talents were in such demand at the height of his career that he could have taken his pick of any number of cushy, big-earning, glamorous assignments. But instead, he turned his back on them all and opted to photograph bike racing exclusively despite the relatively low income it offered. Meet Don Morley, the most celebrated bikesport photographer in the business.”

Don’s clients ranged from multiple world champion Phil Read, to Rothmans Honda, to Suzuki and the Marlboro Yamaha team as their official photographer. The major factory teams of the world stage.

A three times winner of the Motoring Photographer of the Year voted by the Guild of Motoring Writers and winner of the AIPS/Adidas International Sports Photographer of the year.

Stuart Barker: “Films and TV programmes didn’t escape the attentions of Morley’s lenses either; he shot the stills for biking movies like Silver Dream Racer and On Any Sunday II as well as doing promotional material for hugely popular TV shows like Morecombe and Wise, Dad’s Army and Steptoe and Son to name but a few.”

For eleven years, he was the Chief Photographer of the Grand Prix year-book ‘Motocourse’; trials machine technical specialist for the Greeves Rider’s Association and long term Royal Enfield marque specialist for various magazines including Classic Mechanics magazine. He was also a founder member of the Grand Prix press body, The International Race Press Association.

Morley was a founder member, past-chairman and honorary member of The Professional Sports Photographers Association. As if that wasn’t enough, he was chief photographer for the British Olympic Association, Sports World and Worldsports magazines; The Football League Review and World Student Games. He was staff photographer of The Guardian newspaper and assistant chief photographer of United Newspapers for ten years.

What is Don’s favourite photo?

Morley – “To be perfectly honest, I don’t know that I have one! Perhaps one from Muhammad Ali’s fights? I’m not sure.”

Morley was covering Ali’s fight named the ‘Thriller in Manilla’ being in the training camp. He went out every morning at five in the morning to accompany Ali on his runs.

Don – “I was smoking forty fags a day back then, but managed to keep up with him even with my camera bag, but he refused to let me take any photos. Then one morning he stopped and said, OK you’ve earned it, take the pictures, what do you want me to do? I told him that I wanted him posing at the top of a hill with arms high to look like he was on top of the world.”

Quick thinking Morley had run each day with a pair of Ali’s gloves and trunks so that he was prepared for the shots.

Don – “Muhammad stripped off and when he was naked, however he read my mind and with a big fist threatening me, I decided to settle for the pictures I had originally hoped for. I could have made a fortune from such photographs!”

John Moffat: “Having known Don Morley for a number of years, I can say this, he has presence; he exudes professionalism, is quick-witted, has an eye for detail, a great sense of humour and is shrewd. But he is also a died-in-the-wool motorcyclist who has not only rubbed shoulders with world-class sportsmen and women, who were at the top of their game when he was at the top of his. It went further than that, he was respected by them and they knew he made them all look good.“

We leave it to Stuart Barker for the last word on Don Morley: “A massive archive shot by a massive talent who just happens to be a massive bike fan. We should all be grateful that one of the best photographers in the world turned his back on the glitz and glamour of showbiz and mainstream sports to bring us some of the most memorable biking pictures ever seen. Hats off to the man.”

Article Copyright: John Moffat/Trials Guru 2023

Additional Copyright: Stuart Barker 2023

Bibliography:

‘Life Through A Lens’ – Don Morley: Biking’s Most Famous Photographer – Stuart Barker, former journalist at Motor Cycle News and author of: ‘Hizzy’ the autobiograhy of Steve Hislop; Barry Sheene The Biography 1950-2003; David Jefferies, the official biography; Evel Knievel, Life of Evel.

Reference to: All Sport Photographic Agency – Getty Images

Publications:

Trials – A Rider’s Guide – Don Morley (1990) Publisher: Osprey

Classic British Trials Bikes – Don Morley (1985) – Publisher: Osprey – ISBN 0-85045-545-6

Classic British Two-Stroke Trials Bikes – Don Morley (1987) – Publisher: Osprey – ISBN 9780850457452

Photographic Copyright:

Canon Cameras Press Agency

Olympus Press Agency

Don Morley

Ray Biddle Estate

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