My uncle Roy Moxham, who has died aged 86, was a former tea plantation supervisor who in later life turned his hand to writing about tea and about Indiaa country he visited many times on extended trips.
His most successful book was The Great Hedge of India (2001), which was published not just in English but in multiple Indian languages. The hedge of the title, which was four metres high and 2.5m wide, was made of thorny shrubs and stretched 2,500 miles across British India to form a customs line guarded by 12,000 men on behalf of the East India Company.
Following independence in 1947 it all but disappeared, but Roy spent many of his visits to the country looking for vestiges, eventually finding a small surviving section. He cut a branch from it, and it is now in the possession of his brother John (my father), kept safely in his study.
Roy’s other books included A Brief History of Tea (2003), an authoritative account of the complex political and horticultural history of tea, and Outlaw (2010), which looked at the life of India’s “bandit queen” and politician Phoolan Devidrawing on Roy’s friendship with her before her assassination in 2001. His last book, The Theft of India (2015), documented the rivalry between European colonial powers and the impact this had on Indians themselves.
Roy was born in Evesham, Worcestershire, to Marie (known as Min, nee Bland) and Wilson Moxham. Wilson, a baker, died when Roy was 11, after which Min, a shop worker, raised her three sons under straitened circumstances, often taking in lodgers to make ends meet.
After leaving Prince Henry’s grammar school in Evesham in the early 1960s, Roy put an advert in the Times newspaper that read: “Young man, good A-levels, seeks opportunity in Africa in tobacco or tea.” He received a reply offering him a job on a tea plantation in the British colony of Nyasaland (now Malawi), where, despite his youth, he became a supervisor in charge of 1,000 female tea pickers. Later he switched to selling agricultural machinery across east Africa, particularly in Kenya. In the mid-70s, after 13 years in Africa he returned to the UK, where he opened a gallery in Covent Garden, London, selling African art.
Following a period of squatting in Covent Garden, Roy became an early and longstanding member of the Seven Dials Housing Co-operative, living in one of their properties in that area for most of the rest of his life.
In 1978 he changed direction by studying book and paper conservation at Camberwell College of Arts, after which he worked as a conservator at the Canterbury Cathedral Archive, then at Senate House Library, University of London, where he remained until 2005.
While working, Roy had begun travelling regularly to India from 1992 onwards, and it was on those journeys that he began his three-year search for the Great Hedge. The book was hugely successful, often referenced by historians, writers and artists, and even inspired a Horrible Histories sketch.
After retiring in 2005, Roy lived in India for a number of months each year. His book about Devi, a champion of the Indian poor, came about after he wrote to her when she was in prison. When she was released they arranged a meeting, and became great friends.
Roy is survived by his two brothers, John and Jim, a nephew, three nieces and me.
Source: www.theguardian.com
