Mosley was an interesting sort of character. An intelligent and fairly charismatic politician who moved across the House (of Commons) from Left to Right in the 1930s.

In 1961 or 1962 I was going to Euston Station in London, returning home from an army cadet training camp in Pirbright in Surrey. A fellow cadet said he was going to visit his uncle who worked on a magazine just round the corner from the station, and would I care to come along. As we had about an hour to kill before catching the train, I said yes.

His uncle was to be found in a scruffy little office off the Euston Road, and the magazine which, if I remember rightly, he edited or helped to edit, a mag which supported what was left of the British Union of Fascists - or whatever they called themselves in those days. I vaguely recall a logo with a lightning flash in the centre of it. Anyway, at some point in the conversation, who should walk in but Oswald Mosley. I don't recall that we exchanged more than brief introductions before it was time to leave and catch the train, but the moment has stayed in my mind.

I think he was a flawed man of huge talent who had big ideas and aspirations, but a lot of contempt for a large section of humanity. Perhaps his best memorial is Wodehouse's parody of him as Roderick Spode, 7th Earl of Sidcup and leader of the Black Shorts...