In these times where limitation is a fact of life we need something to lift the spirits, to show what is possible rather than what can be achieved in despite of the forces ranged against us. For me – and for many others I suspect Jan Morris’s story (1926-2020) gives exactly that. Probably best known for her gender reassignment all the way back in the early 1970’s, Morris was actually a fine historian and an even better journalist and writer. Though she rejected the label of travel writer her accounts of wonderful places across the Globe are vivid and compelling.
As Michael Palin said on Radio 4 this week, just reading what Jan said made you want to go there, to live there and experience the colour and vibrancy. Venice, described by Morris is the shimmering, barely believable mirage rising slowly above the lapping waters of the lagoon, a monument to the glories of the past and the profit of the present; such an image matches my memories so closely that it is uncanny. Reading Morris’s account makes me long to go back when the pandemic recedes.
As a journalist she was extraordinary too. First to break the news of the ascent of Everest in 1953, first to open the Pandora’s Box during the Suez Crisis. Her novel ‘Last Letters from Hav’ was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1985, and her 1978 history of Empire ‘Pax Britannica’ showed her calibre as an academic historian and communicator. Over 30 books, including writings about Italy, Hong Kong, Sydney, Oxford and the USA poured out over the last three decades of the twentieth century to critical acclaim – with probably the one exception being ‘Conundrum’, her account of her transformation of gender which was completed in 1972. At the time critics found it difficult to deal with as society was so much less accepting of the concept. Interestingly Morris noticed little change in her own town – she said that ‘no-one batted an eyelid when she introduced herself as Jan rather than James’. She put that down to ‘just kindness. Everything good in the world is kindness’.
In her interview with Palin JM comes across as resolutely optimistic, a commodity in somewhat short supply of late. Apparently she had a sense that she was ‘at the end of things’, having achieved most that she had set out to do through constant determination, boundless imagination, endless curiosity and consummate writing skill. Her gender fluidity must have made life so challenging for her nearly 50 years ago, but her work transcends the narrow considerations of sexuality and gives an object lesson in how to live well and to the full – for both boys and girls as well as all of us grown-ups too…
SDS
