1 Herbert Road - Plaque unveiling

Jan's parents, Walter Morris and his wife, the concert pianist Enid Payne, lived at several Clevedon addresses, settling here after their marriage in 1919.

Their oldest son, Gareth, became widely known as the finest flautist in the country, playing at Westminster Abbey on Coronation Day in 1953.

Christopher, their second son, rose within the Oxford University Press to become Music Editor, as well as being a composer in his own right. It was he who developed the OUP's record label. He also worked with Ralph Vaughan-Williams on compiling a new edition of the Oxford Book of Carols, later revising the collection with another rising composer, John Rutter.

When we come to Jan, her life began as the third son, James Humphrey Morris. James served in the Army during the Second World War, following this with a career in journalism, meeting many fascinating figures of the time, Eisenhower, Kim Philby and Che Guevara among them.

In 1953, James was reporting for The Times on the attempt on Everest, and was the first reporter to get the news back to England on Coronation Day – when his oldest brother was playing at Westminster Abbey – quite a coup for the family.

He began to write books, which have been well received and highly praised, ranging over the life of cities all over the world, individual famous people and his own experience of gender reassignment in 1972.

He had to go through a nominal divorce to be able to do that, but he and his former wife remained devoted friends for the rest of their long lives. They had five children, one of whom died as an infant.

Jan spent more than half of her long life living in Wales, where her parents grew up and met, regarding it as her ancestral home. Her youngest son, Twm, has spent the majority of his life, too, in Wales, living close to his parents, spending a great deal of time with them and looking after them as they both entered their 90s. Jan died in 2020 and Twm's mother, Elizabeth, will be 100 this year.

Twm too, is a musician and a writer, writing in Welsh and translating Jan's writings on the country into Welsh. His work is highly thought of too and he won the chair at the 2003 National Eisteddfod for one of his poems. He was the Welsh Children’s Laureate 2009-2010, sings with and writes for a folk-rock group and edits the Welsh poetry magazine Barddas.

Twm unveiled the plaque on June 4th at 3pm at 1 Herbert Road. Julia Elton introduced him, with a speech referring to Jan's book about Venice, in which she described a tower on one of the islands rising out of the mist like the spire on Kingston Seymour church.

The event was a very relaxed and friendly one, with readings by Twm from some short pieces Jan had written about her childhood here, travelling round the area on her oldest brother's handlebars, to walking to the sea wall and the pier and coast path with her treasured telescope.

Twm and his partner Gwyneth Glyn, repeated a short piece written and performed for Jan's 90th birthday, which went down very well. He rounded things off by singing Jan's favourite hymn, 'The day Thou gavest, Lord, is ended.'

Clevedon Civic Society Chair Mike Graham thanked everyone for their help, in particular Jane Lilly for organising the event, and once he had pointed out where the cake and drinks were, we adjourned to Herbert Gardens to enjoy ourselves.

Jane Lilly

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