An Extraordinary Life.

Jan Morris was the only journalist to accompany Edmund Hilary on his ascent of Mount Everest in 1953. Then still James Morris, she was 26 years old. She sent a now famous telegram: “Snow conditions bad. Advance base abandoned yesterday. Awaiting improvement. All Well!”

There was more to the dispatch than met the eye. She was using coded language to confirm that he had successfully reached the summit. The Times broke the story on the day of The Queen’s coronation.

The accent of Mount Everest was considered to be a last hurrah for the fading British Empire, but it was just the beginning for Jan Morris. In 1956, she broke the news that France had been collaborating with Israel to invade Egypt in the Suez Crisis.

In 1972, she became one of the first high profile figures to have gender reassignment surgery. She wrote about her experiences two years later in Conundrum, a groundbreaking account of the transgender experience.

Elizabeth Tuckniss, Jan Morris’ wife, remained faithful to her, even though they legally had to divorce after the gender reassignment surgery.

Jan Morris died at her home in Wales on Trans Day of Remembrance at the age of 94. She lived a life of extraordinary richness and diversity. She wrote 40 books, raised four children and travelled extensively.

Her literary reputation was sealed by her travel books, especially her lyrical descriptions of Venice and Trieste. She also wrote a sprawling history of the British Empire. By the time The Guardian met her for a final interview this year, she could scarcely believe she had written so much as she flicked through her exhaustive notes for her history books. She knew she was at the end of her incredible journey and she was in a pensive mood.

She didn’t consider her gender transition to be a transition, as such. More an absorbing of one sex into the other. Her travel writing, her gender and later her Welsh nationalism all seemed to be connected. She considered her extensive travels to be linked to her exploration of her own identity. Her romantic attachment to Wales was reflected in the evocative accounts she wrote of cities like Venice. She had an intuitive understanding of place and history that elevated her writing. She lived the life of an artist and ultimately a life of great fulfilment. We can all learn an awful lot about how to live well from reading Jan Morris.