To begin with, I did think so. I seemed to fear in myself more of a compassion towards detail rather than sweep, if you understand me. It seems to me… - Jan Morris

For Jan did have a terribly conventional idea of what a woman was. In the book she delights in having doors held open for her, and she more than accepts being treated as the inferior and weaker sex, whatever her protestations that the world was changing. One gets the distinct impression that she would expect men to change a flat tyre for her.

But I should say I would never use the word change, as in "sex-change" for what happened to me. I did not change sex, I really absorbed one into the other. I'm a bit of each now. I freely admit it. There is obviously all of this debate about it all at the moment, but for me it was never a black and white thing. Never could be. It was a sort of instinct. A question of spirit almost. But that's all in that book I wrote, isn't it?’

There was something far more confusing, though. Jan had a very specific view of what constituted a "woman". First, a woman should train to be a secretary, next get married, then have babies and finally look after the family. In other words, a completely sexist view. I was brought up knowing this was what was expected of me; I was given no alternatives. My mother was this character.