Sydney Bertram Carter, British poet, songwriter and folk musician, a Christian, was born at Camden Town, London, on 6 May 1915, and died 13 March 2004.

Sydney Carter is best known for two songs:

• One More Step along the road I go...
• Lord Of The Dance (1963), an adaptation of the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts featured in Aaron Copland's ballet Appalachian Spring.

Education

• Islington
• Christ's Hospital school in Horsham, West Sussex
• University: read history at Balliol College, Oxford (1930s)

Work

• teaching at Frensham Heights school, in Farnham, Surrey (1940s);
• service in World War II with the Friends' Ambulance Unit in the Middle East and Greece;
• lyricist for Donald Swann's reviews and musicals (1950s);
• 1962 album Putting Out The Dustbin with Sheila Hancock, with the song Last Cigarette on failing to give up smoking that became a minor hit;
• 1964 composed six songs for the Donald Swann EP, Songs Of Faith And Doubt;
• critic for Gramophone magazine;
• 1965 wrote the six-song EP album Lord Of The Dance with Martin Carthy on guitar, the Johnny Scott Trio and the Mike Sammes singers;

Personal

• 1999 - Alzheimer's disease

• Family:
  • second wife: Leela Carter
    • son: Michael Carter - neurosurgeon