Early Life
Hamilton was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where she was named Ian at birth. She grew up in Stonehaven, 15 miles (24 km) south of Aberdeen, in the North East of Scotland. She had a generally unhappy and dislocated childhood, including a spell at boarding school, where she was abused. She was an outwardly popular and charismatic child but after suffering years of sexual abuse made worse by her gender dysphoria, she decided to join the British Army to camouflage her real personality.
Hamilton joined as an officer in the Royal Irish Rangers in 1983, serving in Northern Ireland. She retrained as a TV cameraman in 1987, working for Scottish Television. Her military background saw her dispatched to war zones covering the Gulf War 1, the civil wars in Angola and Afghanistan, and the conflict in Bosnia. She then worked as a director for Scottish and Anglia Television in the 1980 -90's, before leaving to become bureaux chief of Edinburgh Live TV in 1996. In 1997 Hamilton was promoted to editor-in-chief of Live's City TV network by boss Kelvin MacKenzie. Hamilton resigned from her position at Live TV in 1998, after management changes at their Canary Wharf Headquarters, and took up a senior management position at Granada TV. She has been nominated twice by the British Academy for her television work.
Read more about this topic: Jan Hamilton
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