Jan Morris, at 93, meditates on what it means to be old

‘I’m getting rather tired of me,’ begins Jan Morris in one of the diary entries in Thinking Again, almost certainly the writer and journalist’s last book. She is only half kidding. This collection of essays and whimsical daily musings — a sequel to 2018’s In My Mind’s Eye — is both a deep dive into the charming and erudite mind of Morris, now 93, and also a moving meditation on just what it means to be old. Morris was launched to fame in 1953 when, as James Morris, she was the first journalist to report on Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reaching the summit of Mount Everest. She experienced a different type of fame altogether when in 1972 she had gender reassignment surgery in Morocco. Over her career she was written more than 40 books — notably her Pax Britannica trilogy on the British Empire — and raised four children with her ex-wife and now civil partner Elizabeth. It’s no wonder that she’s a little tired.

This book is every bit as witty as the last one, and touches with insight and good humour on everything from Brexit and Harry and Meghan to Welsh nationalism and being ‘big on goats’. Much of it is self-consciously inane, and part of its charm is that it feels as if we are having a natter in person with the author herself.

But it is sadder than the last book, I think. ‘I am well past my sell-by date,’ she claims with a wink. But then, ‘humanity is hardening’, she adds, as she rages against ‘these cyber-days’ and the ‘disadvantages’ of old age. ‘Never get old!’ If old age was once a bit of a joke, ‘grist to a writer’s mill’, it is also a very serious business indeed.