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IN MEMORY:
EDDIE MORTON
1947 - 2021
Eddie Morton lived in
Tylers Green for all the
50 years of his married
life and only a few years
ago was pleased to discover
from Ron Saunders that his Morton ancestors
had come from Penn. He was born in
Watlington, Oxfordshire in 1947 although his
parents were living in Saunderton and he grew
up there. He was the only child of a father who
had been blinded by a bullet in the First World
War and followed his father into the building
trade, starting as a carpenter, then in
management and finally running his own
business in partnership with his wife, Ros.
He married Ros in 1971 and they lived first in
The Chase for ten years, then in New Road, and
finally, from 1987, in Wheeler Avenue. They
had two sons, Gavin and Martyn, who survive
him, and one daughter, Samantha, who
tragically died, aged 23, in a white-water rafting
accident in Thailand in 2006.
Photography was his life-long passion and he
was very proud to be able to add ARPS
(Associate of the Royal Photographic Society)
after his name. He had prepared his submission
for Fellowship (FRPS), the highest distinction
they award, with a group of photographs he
titled as ‘London Skyline in Infrared’, but was
thwarted by both Covid lockdown and illness.
He had also been awarded FDPS (Fellow of the
Disabled Photography Society – he had lost the
sight in one eye in a childhood accident). For
many years he was a leading member of both
Amersham and Wycombe Photographic
Societies. He would go to endless trouble to get
his pictures as perfect as possible.
Serendipity arranged for me to meet him on
the Common in the late 1990s and our
www.pennandtylersgreen.org.uk
Village Voice October/November 2021
rewarding collaboration as colleagues and
friends provided photographs and amended
maps to bring the text alive in a long series of
local history publications, Village Voice articles
and presentations. He started in 2000 with Penn
& Tylers Green in Old Photographs for which
his task was to take a series of photographs
along the road from Beaconsfield to Hazlemere
exactly matching those of a century earlier and
he relished the challenge.
We also spent many hours photographing
every aspect of Penn Church, all the family
portraits in Penn House and in the magnificent
Curzon house at Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire.
He particularly enjoyed visiting and
photographing most of the houses in our
Conservation Area for Mansions and
mudhouses. He also prepared the illustrations
for several presentations with Lord and Lady
Howe and the late Jean Rollason in Penn
Church, at the Quaker centre in Jordans, in our
Village Hall and elsewhere.
My own 180-page family history, in two
parts, was immensely enhanced by his
photographic and
photoshop skills. He
designed the covers, set
out long family trees
embellished with
coloured links, enhanced
the many illustrations,
and resized and doctored
the many maps. Nothing
was too much trouble
and I could not possibly
have done it without
him. He was, in short,
P&TG’ s much valued
leading photographer for
many years and will be
greatly missed.
Eddie remained
strong and healthy until
his 70s when cancer
struck and eventually
defeated him. Miles Green
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