the not so nice Jan Morris

he was a phenomenally boring travel writer (I own an old copy of his book about Venice) and now apparently also a total fucking arsehole. I’ve never understood the sacred cow approach to his stuff. Poor, poor Elizabeth - trapped by the conviction that god wanted her to stay married.

"....she had no desire to sleep with women, she returned to London and performed a U-turn (a Morris characteristic). A coup de foudre with Elizabeth, the daughter of a tea planter in Ceylon...."

There's a Mrs Merton gag in that sentence right there.

‘I’m not Daddy any more. I’m Jan’

announced, no discussion allowed, to all four children.

You can say that again, love.

Morris never parented any of the children. They’re fine about expressing how the Morris legacy is a huge fail.

It’s very sad. He was pretty useless from the off with the kids ie both pre and post trans.

The kids judged Jan as a person and as a parent, not a gender, and she didn’t pass.

Oh that is perfect. Bloody love GG sometimes

Suki had this to say on twitter last year

"I didn't find Jan's transition extremely difficult at all.I don't care what gender anyone wants to be. It's the person that's important.The way Jan treated us caused the rift. The unkindness."

‘Her second son, Henry, chose to go and live abroad. Asked about Morris after her death, he said: “We were introduced, but we never actually got to know each other.

Crikey! That is very very telling.

Always happy to help 🫡

@mcduffy

🎁eternal gratitude, slightly used

Here you go

Jan Morris by Paul Clements review — a biography of a brilliant but selfish life

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/40d23ce8-4a34-11ed-8176-c5c5e560820a?shareToken=d683d245b73ffeb0ecfc4544a2b80f09

Germaine Greer is just fantastic. No wonder woke youth are demonising her.

It sounds like AGP to me, where the homosexual encounters are largely about affirming the view of oneself as a woman for purposes of sexual satisfaction.

I actually don't think that is ever a "classic" old-school trans presentation, in so far as such a thing exists I think it's limited to homosexual men. I don't believe in "true-trans" as such, but I do think that there have in the past and even now are gay men, often often who are mainly attracted to straight men, and so end up identifying with culturally feminine presentation. The same way young women do for pretty much the same reasons. It's not just a conscious decision about wearing attractive clothes etc, it's very tied up with self-perception.

I don't think Morris falls into that category.

And there was God, tearing her hair out, screaming that it was not a marriage in her sight because one of the parties to it did not enter into it in good faith. Elizabeth needed a Jesuit. Or maybe not that, even. There are clergy in the CofE who will assist victims of that vile belief that traps women into slavery and even enable remarriage in church

When I think about Elizabeth’s glaring silence, it’s not an expectation she should explain herself.

It just feels suffocating for me to contemplate the silence of a woman who, rather than being supported, was put through years of extremely testing circumstances by her husband, who was so profuse with public words - and so was able to completely control the narrative. It says so much.

You've misunderstood the comment

I note Morris went to all-male boarding schools, the army and a male college at Oxford. Then into a very macho profession. All the time feeling sexually attracted to men. Father in the military so probably away a lot. Lots of these feature in the backstories of male transitioners. Can't live up to the stereotype of an alpha male (understandably, it's toxic), so must actually be something else. Change your appearance but not your mindset. Meanwhile the real women around you just have to put up with what you have decreed.

I enjoy Jan Morris's travel books but his descriptions of women are jarring. Women who aren't chic and groomed are judged to be lazy and morally failing.

Imagine being the daughter of a dad who thought himself to be a better woman than actual women, due to his own sexist thoughts about fashion and hairstyles?

I don’t doubt it did Elizabeth’s head in, but christ it must’ve been proper headfuckery for a young Suki.

Morris always seemed to me to be an over-rated writer. I didn't much like Conundrum, and her travel writing was very florid. Sathnam Sanghera's Empireland is worth a read - he's very good on how, in the Pax Brittanica series, Morris glosses over the appalling acts of the British Empire. I'm not terribly surprised that Morris turns out to have been not a particularly nice person.

”That said, I don’t think Elizabeth owed anyone an explanation of why she stayed.”

But she did give an explanation:

”Later, when same-sex marriage was introduced, they remarried. Suki told Clements her mother was undeniably affected by the transition. “When I asked her why she didn’t leave, she said she was married in the eyes of God, and that was the reason she stayed.”

This is how many people of that era thought - it’s how my Mum thought, and why she didn’t leave my emotionally abusive father.

Thank you @Igneococcus and OP @JanieAllen (I completely overlooked the archive link) and @Fenlandia for the link to the twitter thread, you'll all have to share my eternal gratitude.

I totally read the caption under the second photo as Dick Caveat!

I met Jan Morris on a couple of occasions. Paul Theroux’s description of her looking like Tootsie is spot-on. She said the following: that she hated being called a travel writer, and that “all my books are about me”.
She was an object of worship for some writers (I saw this myself), but I never bought into her mystique. It always seemed to me that she denied the advantages of being born male. She only cast her privilege aside once her career was established.
That said, I don’t think Elizabeth owed anyone an explanation of why she stayed.

As always thank you so much Igneococcus.

Unsurprisingly Jan thinks the kids "adjusted perfectly" as these narcissistic males always do.

Germaine Greer has always been and is my heroine

There is someone who often pops up in the Times comments whose argument is always "but remember the lovely Jan Morris, why would you not want to share toilets with someone like that?" I hope he reads this.

It really is.