A lifelong love of art and the craft of a dedicated reporter gave the former Guardian journalist Michael Morris, who has died aged 85, one of his most memorable stories. A vivid piece of reporting from the home of LS Lowry, the day after the artist's death in 1976, exemplified his quiet yet persistent talents.
Tipped off by his photographer colleague Denis Thorpe, who talked his way past security to photograph the interior of Lowry's home in Mottram in Longdendale, Cheshire, Morris moved swiftly to become the first reporter on the scene. His story disclosed that there were many more of Lowry's works than experts had imagined, perhaps running to several hundreds "scattered around the house".
Morris meticulously recorded paintings, sketches on paper, colour on hardboard; grandfather clocks, Lowry's old radio and "an electrical fire with artificial logs". Not for the first time colleagues recalled his mastery of detail.
Morris was born in the Lancashire seaside town of Southport. He was the oldest, with his non-identical twin Peter, of four sons born to George, a sales representative for a lace manufacturing company, and Muriel Morris. Michael entered Southport Junior art school at 14, leaving to become a cub reporter on the Southport Visiter.
After working for the Visiter's rival, the Southport Guardian, Morris reported in Newcastle and on the Manchester Evening Chronicle before joining the Guardian's Manchester office. Here his reports ranged widely, from the Windscale nuclear inquiry, the Toxteth riots, and the Strangeways prison siege, to expeditions into northern cultural life including the first Durham University oriental music festival, and tracking a Degas painting to Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Morris reflected a Manchester Guardian ethos in which literary craft was often allied to creative idiosyncrasy. His light-grey suit was often topped with a Cossack hat; his tightly furled umbrella drew catcalls from the crew of a destroyer whose captain he interviewed in Liverpool. His vegetarianism and yoga preceded their wider adoption, and he ably resumed his interests in painting and piano playing in retirement.
He will be remembered as a fluent and determined journalist, with several interests and a huge capacity for friendship. His wife, Anne, and his twin, Peter, predeceased him. He is survived by his brothers John and David.