Alastair Morton

Morton was educated at St John's College, Johannesburg, and Witwatersrand University, but came to Britain to read law at Worcester College, Oxford, as a De Beers scholar and remained in England for the rest of his life, although he did spend some time back in Africa and also with the World Bank in Washington.

Morton famously coined the phrase that the aftermath of the Hatfield rail crash constituted a 'collective nervous breakdown' on the part of the British railway industry.

Relations with the Department for Transport, the Treasury and the Rail Regulator - which collectively did have the powers which Morton wanted - deteriorated quite quickly.

Towards the end of his time at the SRA, Morton was making public statements which were more and more critical of his political masters and what he saw as their intransigence in allowing him both the power and the freedom he believed he should have had.

He summed up his objections in what became his second most memorable railway phrase - 'He who pays the piper should call the tune' - by which he meant that the SRA should set the overall level of public spending on the railways, and what was to be delivered with the cash, and the Rail Regulator should simply check that the money was efficiently used.