Ian Harry McDermott (1947-54) 21.04.36-09.09.11
by reading of the endurance of Sir Edward Shackleton (OA). He also continued writing with increasing urgency and wrote a book, Don’t Tell Me I’m Going To Die: Reflections On My Terminal Cancer , and he became one of the longest survivors of liver cancer. His widow visited the College in July 2011 and had lunch with the then Alleyn Club President, Bernard Battley, and his wife Margaret and was shown Blew House where he was a boarder and also Shackleton’s boat. Leslie Moss came to Dulwich from New Park Road School, Brixton Hill, and was on the Modern side. After two years’ national service in the RAF he went into banking, but in his early 20s decided to move to the USA and start a new life and career in Southern California. He worked as the Los Angeles correspondent of the Jewish Chronicle and was a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association covering the show business scene and attending private screenings and premieres. Ahead of marriage in 1964 to Barbara of Brooklyn he looked for a more reliable career and joined an insurance company, Pennsylvania Life, rising to become an executive vice- president leading a staff of 1,000 in the company’s Atlanta office for several years. On retirement he dedicated himself to his adopted hometown of Malibu, worked on the planning commission and became involved in local politics as well as being an active member of the town’s Jewish community. His interests included tennis, golf, football and baseball along with ‘native’ sports such as cricket and soccer and he also enjoyed spending time with his family Dachshunds. His death was sudden and without warning after singing Christmas carols at a friend’s home. His life was celebrated by 200 people at a memorial ‘party’ at a beach club in Malibu with food such as bangers and mash, bubble and squeak and shepherd’s pie. We are not told what was drunk but ‘they closed the pub where Moss showed up every week to watch soccer so that the denizens of the area’s equivalent of Cheers could show up at the memorial’. An obituary was published in The Malibu Times on which this is partly based along with a tribute from his closest friend, Ivor Davies, an English journalist whom fellow OA, Tim Franey, suggested might like to write a piece. Leslie Walter Moss (1943-48) 18.07.32-25.12.11
Ian McDermott was the younger of two brothers who came to the College from Dulwich Hamlet School. A keen scout, he enjoyed the expedition to the Black Forest with the school troop in 1953. That same year and as a Queen Scout he was on Coronation Day, part of the Guard of Honour in the rain outside Buckingham Palace. Although asthma inhibited his sporting activities he enjoyed rugby and swimming and, showing great promise in maths, on leaving Dulwich he trained as an actuary with Equity and Law Life Assurance. But after 2-3 years he switched his studies to physics, gaining sponsorship from the UK Atomic Energy Authority, gaining a First in applied physics. His career was spent working for the development of the peaceful use of nuclear power with British Nuclear Fuels while in 1980 he was seconded to Westinghouse in the USA to obtain the physics data needed for the design of the core of the water cooled reactors. Following early retirement he joined Lancashire County Council as an Emergency Planning Officer particularly on the nuclear side. A local Parish Councillor, he was noted for his support of cub and scout troops, and as an active member of local history groups he traced the family trees of his own family as well as of other local people. With three sons and some ten grandchildren he was very much a family man and he died from Motor Neurone disease which was borne with unstinted bravery and humour. His older brother, Brig (Rtd) BC McDermott, contributed significantly to this obituary. Feroze Moos came with his brother to Dulwich from the Cathedral High School in Bombay and he was in the swimming team. He went on to King’s College, Cambridge, to read geology and natural sciences and was also captain of lawn tennis. He married Shireen in India in 1958 and for 15 years he worked in Bombay in senior management for several companies including a Shell petrochemical project. He was closely involved in work with the blind, recruiting blind villagers in mountain villages to help them to become self sufficient farmers and to resettle on their homelands. CARE and the Royal Society for the blind reckoned this was one of the finest projects of its kind in the world. In 1970 they emigrated to Canada where again he worked in senior management for a number of companies before retirement in 1991. Then he pursued his passion for writing, wood carving and being with nature and over seven years he wrote a novel, Cephalo . In 1998 he was diagnosed with liver cancer and reckoned to have only months to live, but he lived for a further eight years having been inspired Feroze Framroze Moos (1949-51) 14.11.32-17.08.06
Andrew Paul Nash (1958-66) 14.07.47-08.12.11
Andrew Nash was the younger of two brothers who came to Dulwich from the Prep. He was a keen scout, patrol leader and a Queen’s Scout and remembered with relish the troop’s trips to Iceland in the 1960s. He went on to Bristol University in 1966 to study
40 Obituaries
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