Sunday Times article by Jan Morris’s daughter

Germaine Greer dismissed Conundrum for its “self-indulgent impressionistic prose” & commented that “Elizabeth’s unbroken silence is the truest measure of Jan Morris’s enduring masculinity”.

This will greatly resonate for transwidows. Whether individually cruel and unpleasant or not, the sexist regressive stance, the self-absorption and the mishandling of a catastrophic event in a family, and putting him not his children first, is all too familiar. Very brave article. Good for her for speaking the experience of children and long-suffering women.

For some reason that particular story stuck in my mind, and I just remembered reading it jn the Times diary. Then it was a case of googling Jan Morris lunch Times diary, which is how I produced the wrong link the first time. Curiously, the correct link isn’t behind a paywall, at least not for me.

RoyalCorgi · 11/12/2022 13:27

There's a November 2021 tweet here from Suki Morys...

It's clear from the article, though, that the transition was extremely difficult for her, so I think she's not being entirely straight there, perhaps not even with herself.

It may be that she was exercising caution, she can't have failed to notice what happens when women don't write fawning, unctuous things about transw.

Morris seems not just to have been narcissistic, but positively sadistic in his treatment of Suki.

The constant belittling of her, ignoring her as a very young child and withholding any affection, removing her from schools, to ensure that her education was disrupted and the horrible, horrible trick of having her read his will - only to see that he hadn't mentioned her.

It's a shame that I'm an atheist and cannot comfort myself with the thought of Morris being marshmallowed on Satan's pitchfork.

He was a top of the range abusive shit.

@DworkinWasRight's the clever one, I just know a bit about archiving sites.

Ooh brilliant! Thank you @DworkinWasRight and @nauticant it's been driving me mad trying to find it. Do you have encyclopedic memories?!

Spot on!

https://archive.ph/ix1Ev

You’re right! It’s this one: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-diary-johnson-girls-luxury-poesy-n6mntkwvk

I don't think that's the right article:

https://archive.ph/uJOSX

No share token, sorry:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-diary-dickens-of-a-predicament-xnmk6hv6g

I remember that - it was a snippet in the Times diary column.

Hi everyone - I'm hoping you can help me. Around the time Suki's article came out and I read this thread I read another article about Jan Morris which I can't find again. I've looked and looked several times and wasted hours to the point I've become a bit obsesses about finding it!

It was written by someone who went for lunch with Jan in Wales, they commented in the article that even though Jan had 'changed sex' when this friend visited Jan was clearly sexist; said friend suggested he help clear the table after they'd eaten and Jan's response was that that's woman's work and so Jan's wife would do it.

Maybe it was an excerpt from the Paul Clement autobiography in a review but I've read a few of the available reviews on the internet plus The Times & The Daily Mail articles about Suki's book and an UnHerd one about JM but it was none of them.

Can anyone help?

It feels very narcissistic insisting on a ‘reinvention’ being recognised by absolutely everyone around you. Especially for the very closest people like kids or partners who really knew the person well before their ‘new’ self began. It must feel like a huge rejection or bereavement or like being left behind while the reinvented person moves on into something new and pulls up the ladder behind themselves. People shouldn’t be required to affirm and validate and bury their own feelings about these things.

A schoolfriend’s mum changed her first name when we were teenagers and I remember that I felt really uncomfortable about that at the time but wasn’t able to put it into words. Even then I knew her mum wasn’t really changing anything but the insistence on the new name as if it really mattered, put a distance there and changed the relationships all around because of just trying to always remember to use the new name. Perhaps I was worried about what she needed to get away from and who she wanted to be now. I wish I had had the maturity at the time to ask my friend how she felt about it. It seemed a very difficult thing to ask her kids to take on at an awkward age when they were working out who they were, too.

Fascinating to hear about JM. Poor daughter. Anyone read Susan Faludi on her father who transitioned as a woman. It's a must read.

Saying I know him would be stretching it.

I spent a drunken weekend in Ireland and Northern Ireland several years ago and ended up hanging out with him and a bunch of random other people I didn't know. Very long story - and literally me being crazy and a bit strange rather than any back story or employment opportunity.

Really nice bloke. Really interesting. But undeniably screwed up by what I thought was too much touring and never being settled in one place. I've met people before like that who are almost too worldly to the point that that struggle to connect with normal life and people living a normal life. I only found out about his father after, but it does fit together.

He is one of those people I could genuinely listen to chatting for hour and hours on end. But I also found him clearly lonely in a way that's difficult to describe and very sad.

From what I've read, I think he has generally sorted himself out a lot out since then - I think he was pretty rock bottom at that point from what he's said in interviews.

I hope he eventually finds whatever inner peace he's been after.

Ah rtb... I might have guessed you would know him... can't help sneakily wishing I knew who you are... but best not!

FT is one fucked up bunny. Really nice guy but really messed up.

The fact he has had to disassociate his father and Miranda being the same person says much

Really lovely that Frank Turner and Miranda have reconciled. I know a lot of FT fans. It does take strength for a parent to change like that.

I can't help noticing that FT is male. Not sure if he has a sister. Given the big difference in how boys and girls were treated by JM, I feel this is relevant.

Actually you did quite offend me. I was deeply shocked and saddened by what Suki Morris had to endure and I will go on processing it because I think it's a very complex and sinister behaviour pattern. And obviously I'm never going feel the same way about Jan Morris' writings. But I refuse to renege on my belief that as a travel writer (s)he gets under the skin of a place and brings it to life. Trieste in particular. But then, probably I need to resign myself to the fact that I am part of Middle England and therefore deficient in my critical responses. And at the same time I believe that Joanna Rowling writes pretty pedestrian prose but is an absolute hero, verging towards goddess status, particularly after today's announcement.

I'm no fan of Shapiro, but he's grabbed by the neck and threatened....? And no-one says a word? I'd like to think I've said something!

This must be the article i read about the singer with the tw father.

www.theguardian.com/music/2021/nov/25/frank-turner-on-reconciling-with-his-trans-parent-miranda-is-a-really-nice-person-my-dad-wasnt

I've never heard of the guy outside this article, his mum doesn't even get a mention, so I misremembered that (and the career in the navy).

Ephron wrote acerbically in a time when it wasn't considered brave to call a man a man, and criticise his failings. But now the most we get is mealy-mouthed liberal feminists contorting themselves to doff cap to the gender god while scoring a few low-hanging fruit. All under editors' orders. Weaksauce.

I've skimmed it too. I should note, because I do on other threads - that what any particular person is like has nothing whatsoever to do with how 'woman' is defined.

But the observation about Jan's opinion of 'how women act' differing when it came to Janself and other women is an interesting one, and one I've noted before.

Not even a talented writer, in my view. Nora Ephron's description of Morris's failings as a writer is spot-on.

I think there's a guy in a band who has a father who is a tw. I read an interview with him about it, probably in the Guardian. Iirc his father had a career in the Navy and was violent (certainly verbally) to his mother. Sooooo, much nicer now he's a tw. I hope they divorced. I think the dad (now trans) watched his sprog from backstage at Glastonbury. Seems to chime with the other articles in this thread, successful men who are vile to their wives and often also to their children. They often seem to have been quite privileged.