#8306, Ivo Adam Rex MOSLEY

Ivo detested his grandfather and spent his life persuading people he was not evil like his grandfather's Fascism.  At Oxford he studied Japanese and became devoted to the country's pottery and porcelain.  Acquiring a kiln in London he learnt to make his own glazes and collaborated readily with other artists.  His colourful creations, often adorned with images of frogs were exhibited in galleries and sold at shops like Liberty's.  When Macy's store in New York asked whether re could supply a thousand items he feared being drawn into too large a commercial operation and ended his pottery to concentrate on other interests.  Having written extensively on ceramics he turned to another love - poetry, producing in 1993 The Green Book of Poetry an anthology of some 300 poems taken from more than 30 languages.

More recently, in a volume he edited called Dumbing Down he wrote "Never before in human history has so much cleverness been used to such stupid ends."  Writing about democracy he said he saw a "widening gap between what we expect of democracy and what it has actually turned out to be."  Amid all his activities the ghostly presence of his grandfather never completely disappeared.  He continued to engage with that past to help to learn its lessons in a spirit of candour.  He appeared alongside surviving members of a Jewish group that had fought against the Blackshirts as part of a documentary about their experiences.  Towards the end of his life he suffered from motor neurone disease and dementia.  Through it all, recalled his family, he retained a courageous serenity and an irrepressible good humour.