Henry Morris' Nine Daies Wonder

Hi, I’m Henry and I’m running to London from Crymych in Pembrokeshire to raise

money and awareness for REFUGEE ACTION.

People seeking sanctuary in the UK are routinely being dehumanised in public

discourse. What we’re told – that those who seek protection are a problem to be

solved – is morally flawed and self-contradictory. Refugees need safety and the UK

(the world’s sixth largest economy) needs people.

I’ve spent the last five years dabbling in political satire. In all that time I’ve seldom

heard the case for openheartedness towards refugees. Instead, many politicians and

large sections of our media demonise them.

Images of crammed dinghies, folklore, and fallacy (‘illegal immigrant’, ‘invasion’) are

used to fuel incendiary criticism while real stories of actual people go untold.

People fleeing from destabilised regions may already speak our language or have

relatives here, yet if they try to approach us, they find no safe paths along which to

travel.

So, I’ve decided to run 240 miles to make some noise.

I’m running to my book launch in London on September 20 th. The book is a

Shakespearean parody of the last fourteen years. One of its themes is the abuse of

refugees by public figures who attack them to further their own careerist or

discriminatory agendas.

The run itself is inspired by Shakespeare’s clown, Will Kempe, who in 1598 fell out

with Shakespeare and ‘jigged’ from London, north-east to Norwich in ‘nine daies’. I

thought I’d repeat that, but by jogging in from the west (where I live) instead.

The only probable surviving text in Shakespeare’s own hand is a speech from Sir

Thomas More, a multi-author play that was premiered in the 1590s. In it he made the

case for accepting refugees better than I can:

Grant them removed, and grant that this your noise

Hath chid down all the majesty of England;

Imagine that you see the wretched strangers,

Their babies at their backs and their poor luggage,

Plodding to th’ ports and costs for transportation,

And that you sit as kings in your desires,

Authority quite silent by your brawl,

All clothed with Stone Island and certainty;

What had you got? I’ll tell you: you had taught

How insolence and strong hand should prevail,

How order should be quelled; and by this pattern

Not one of you should live an aged man,

For other ruffians, as their fancies wrought,

With self-same hand, self reasons, and self right,

Would shark on you, and men like ravenous fishes

Would feed on one another.

If you can afford to give to Refugee Action, please do.

If you’d like to meet me along the way, I’ll be selling signed copies for the cause at

these places:

Details of each day’s location and timings will be given closer to the time by Twitter

(@mrhenrymorris) and Instagram (@_mrhenrymorris). Depending on how fast I’m

running, they’ll be updated much more closely still!