Well-known British writer Jan Morris, a transgendered woman who began her life as a man named James, has married the woman she long ago divorced to change sexes in a civil union.

　　Elizabeth Tuckniss and James Morris were originally married in 1949, having met in London while taking an Arabic course. Morris had recently returned from serving as an intelligence officer in Palestine and Italy after he graduated from Oxford.

　　The couple was very happy together and brought five children into the world, although they suffered the heartbreak of losing one daughter after only two months. James gathered accolades as a journalist, breaking the news of Sir Edmund Hillary's succesful climb of Everest. However, he has always felt "wrongly equipped" in his body although he never felt attracted to men. In 1972, after several years of hormone therapy, he travelled to Morocco and underwent sex change surgery.

　　The couple was forced to divorce after the split, but Elizabeth and Jan continued to share a house in North Wales together. They remained intensely close and affectionate, with Jan describing Elizabeth as her sister-in-law.

　　Now the couple has come full circle with Jan and Elizabeth remarrying in a civil union at the Pwllheli council office in mid May.

　　Jan Morris announced the occasion on BBC4’s Bookclub program, saying: 'I've lived with the same person for 58 years. I married her when I was young and then this sex-change thing - so-called - happened and so we naturally had to divorce but we've always lived together anyway. So I wanted to round this off nicely so last week Elizabeth and I went to have a civil union.'

　　Elizabeth said: “I made my marriage vows 59 years ago and still have them. We are back together again officially. After Jan had a sex change we had to divorce. So there we were. It did not make any difference to me. We still had our family. We just carried on.”

　　Jan continued writing to great acclai after her operation, completing her three part history of the British Empire, the Pax Britannica, after becoming a woman. She’s also the author of autobiographical accounts of his sex change titled Pleasures of a Tangled Life and The Conundrum. She may best be known for her rich, descriptive texts on great cities, including Venice, Hong Kong and New York.

　　These works were enjoyed by famed travel writer Paul Theroux, who mentions the great love of Jan and Elizabeth in his account of walking the British coast entitled The Kingdom by the Sea. Theroux visits the Morris’ planned joint burial site on an island in the River Dwyfor behind their home, where their shared headstone will read: 'Here are two friends, at the end of one life.'