Travel Blog

Jan Morris, the doyenne of travel writers, turns 83 today (born 22 years to the day after Graham Greene).

I had the great pleasure of meeting Jan in Key West in 1991, when she was speaking at the annual literary conference. We had an interview scheduled after her panel, and I remember standing patiently off to the side while she graciously made herself available to her many fans. When she finally extricated herself, she apologized profusely for keeping me waiting. I have never met a famous person who was so considerate of the people around her. A few days later I ran into her as she was doing her power walk down Duval Street. She was then 65.

In all her years of travel - which began as James Morris, getting the scoop of Edmund Hillary's ascent of Mt. Everest - she never lost her tremendous capacity for delight and wonder. For all her sharpness as an observer and brilliance as a writer, she has, over the decades, made 'kindness' the central theme of both her work and her life.

In her last book, Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, she wrote: "There are people everywhere who form a Fourth World, or a diaspora of their own. They are the lordly ones! They come in all colours. They can be Christians or Hindus or Muslims or Jews or pagans or atheists. They can be young or old, men or women, soldiers or pacifists, rich or poor. They may be patriots, but they are never chauvinists. They share with each other, across all the nations, common values of humour and understanding. When you are among them you know you will not be mocked or resented, because they will not care about your race, your faith, your sex or your nationality, and they suffer fools if not gladly, at least sympathetically. They laugh easily. They are easily grateful. They are never mean. They are not inhibited by fashion, public opinion or political correctness. They are exiles in their own communities because they are always in a minority, but they form a mighty nation, if they only knew it."