Later Life
After a heart attack in London, Ashley retired for some years to the Welsh border town of Hay-on-Wye. In her book "April Ashley's Odyssey" she stated that Amanda Lear was born male as Alain Tapp and they had worked together at Le Carousel where Lear had used the name Peki d'Oslo. Ashley was once great friends with Lear, but according to Ashley's book The First Lady, the two women had a major falling out and haven't spoken in years.
In the 1980s, Ashley married Jeffrey West, on the retired cruise ship RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach, California; and by all accounts is still married to same.
In 2005, after the passage of the Gender Recognition Act 2004, Ashley was finally legally recognised as a female and issued with a new birth certificate. The then Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom John Prescott, who knew Ashley from the 1950s, helped her with the procedure.
Most recently Ashely gave talks on her life at St George's Hall in Liverpool as part of the city's Homotopia festival on 15 November 2008, and on 18 February 2009 at the South Bank Centre.
Ashley presently lives on her own in Fulham, West London.
Ashley was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to transgender equality.
Read more about this topic: April Ashley
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth below not in unison with these,—but are hindered from action by the disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire, and turn drudges, or die of disgust,—some of them suicides.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“As a rule they will refuse even to sample a foreign dish, they regard such things as garlic and olive oil with disgust, life is unliveable to them unless they have tea and puddings.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)