From shards of her own experience, interstitial moments in a lifetime spent travelling the world, Jan Morris has compiled a rich collection of very human vignettes. She remembers seeing Winston Churchill in Whitehall on the day of German surrender, among the "grand old monuments of English history", and thinking "he was already one of them".
Beyond the famous, this is an album of anonymous people briefly encountered. An elderly Caribbean sailor spots a shark by their boat. Morris confides that she would not mind being eaten in Fiji because the people - whose forebears were cannibals - are so friendly.
In apartheid Johannesburg she observes a "vast, tattered queue" of black workers moving in "raggety parade" for buses home, a scene of "unutterable degradation". Morris calls these glimpses "contacts" - sparks of creative ignition. They are often striking and memorable.
Contact!
Jan Morris
Faber & Faber, 202pp, £14.99
Post this article to
Post your comment
Please note: you will need to login or register before you can comment on the website
