Ann Leslie RIP

Sorry to hear that Ann Leslie, one of the great foreign correspondents, has died, aged 82.

I loved her book Killing My Own Snakes (“The extraordinary life of a Fleet Street legend”) which stands alongside the best Fleet Street memoirs and makes me nostalgic for an era I missed by a generation.

It also prompted this blog post, written in 2009 - ‘What did you do in the (Cold) War?’.

Tributes to Leslie include this from author and broadcaster Steve Richards:

I’m sad to hear Ann Leslie has died. We used to do a programme called Head to Head when the BBC allowed discussion to breathe. This fearless war reporter once told me she was terrified about her next assignment the following day: a health farm where she couldn’t smoke or drink.

And from Guardian columnist and writer Gaby Hinsliff (via Twitter):

Ann Leslie was a force of nature, a trailblazing female foreign corr & the only person I have ever seen respond to being asked not to smoke at breakfast in a party conference hotel with the words ‘darling, if I’ve smoked in a tank …’

See also Obituary: Ann Leslie (BBC).