Peter Moss had turned travel writer

Former stand-up Pete Moss has been named as one of the 16 victims of a bomb that exploded in a Marrakech café yesterday.

The father-of-two, who became an acclaimed travel writer after his time as a comedian, was thought to have been in the popular Argana café when the blast ripped through the building.

The Foreign Office confirmed that a Briton had died, but has not yet confirmed his identity. However, Mr Moss was named by the Jewish Chronicle, a paper he used to work for.

The 59-year-old had left his family property business in the Nineties to become a stand-up, then ‘reinvented’ himself again, as a travel writer.

In an interview with The Independent in 1994, Moss explained how he turned to comedy after receiving therapy to help him accept his emotions, rather than bottle them up.

He said: ‘Through therapy I have found my true vocation as a comedian. I could never have done it before. You can't make people laugh if you can't communicate with them.

‘I don't see [the therapist] any more. I guess I've just graduated to a different form of therapy. Comedy is my therapy now.’

He performed more than 2,000 times on the comedy circuit before finding his new vocation as a writer.

His friend Laurie Margolis told the BBC yesterday: ‘[Moss]was always trying to be someone other than what he was, and what he was was someone from a fairly wealthy background.

'He always wanted to be somebody different, and it made sense to be a stand-up comic.

‘And then he reinvented himself as a travel writer.'

Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt said: 'I am deeply saddened by yesterday's explosion in Marrakech.

'We believe that a British national was amongst the 16 people killed. My thoughts are with their friends and families and all those affected by this distressing incident.

'We are in touch with next of kin and are offering them full consular support.’

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the remotely-triggered bomb.

Published: 30 Apr 2011