Top author and trans trailblazer
JAN MORRIS was known as an expressive writer who enjoyed two distinct careers as she swapped one identity for another. As James Morris, the Oxford graduate and Times reporter accompanied the first successful ascent of Mount Everest in 1953, landing a major scoop.
After Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay descended to 22,000ft from the peak, Morris typed up details of the success, which was relayed to the British Embassy and announced the next morning in The Times on the day of the Queen’s coronation in 1953.
Morris became internationally recognised overnight.
But it was when she began transitioning from a man to a woman in 1964 – sex changes were almost unheard of then – that her actions proved most brave.
Known as Jan, she wrote about her experience in the bestselling book Conundrum, becoming the renowned author of 40 books.
Her most celebrated work was the Pax Britannica trilogy about the British Empire, from the earliest days of the East India Company to the troubled years of independence post- colonialism. In 1960, she won the prestigious Heinemann Award for Literature for her city guide to Venice.
Other guides followed and, although they were peppered with a prosaic vocabulary that not everyone enjoyed, the knowledge behind the vivid details made readers feel as if they had visited the places themselves.
A confident writer, Morris never enjoyed such ease when it came to self- identification.
From as early as three or four, Morris knew she wanted to be a girl, even praying for it to happen at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, where she sang in the choir at the age of nine.
She was born James Humphrey Morris in Somerset, to an English mother and Welsh father. Morris joined the 9th Queen’s Royal Lancers in 1944, serving in Italy and Palestine before working for the Arab news agency.
Married to Elizabeth Tuckniss, Morris was open about her desire to undergo a sex change. Her wife supported the transitioning process. After years of drug treatment, Morris had gender reassignment surgery in Casablanca in 1972, performed by pioneering surgeon Georges Burou.
Morris, who was made a CBE in 1999, always considered herself Welsh and she died in hospital in Pwllheli. The cause of death was not revealed.
She is survived by Elizabeth and four of their children.