Killing My Own Snakes - A Memoir

The doyenne of women reporters, she has been a star writer for the "Daily Mail" for over three decades and regularly appears as a witty and forthright contributor to numerous television and radio programs (including "Question Time" and "Any Questions"). She has reported from over seventy countries, sauntering confidently through wars and civil disorders (clad in full makeup and false eyelashes), bringing back reports which have won her numerous awards. But Leslie's life is every bit as remarkable as her career. Born in north-west India, the strongest influence on her early life was an illiterate Pashtun bearer, who saved her life during Partition.Sent to a distant hill-station boarding school at the age of four, she would later graduate from Oxford. After university she began her career in Manchester on the "Daily Express", where she was regarded with suspicion and even hostility for being both educated and female. A year later she moved to Fleet Street and was given a column headlined: 'She's young, she's provocative, and she's only 22'. She later specialized in show business: notable encounters followed involving stars like Steve McQueen, Georges Balanchine, David Niven, Tom Jones, John Cassavetes, James Mason, Marc Bolan and Salvador Dali. Despite knowing nothing about sport she developed a strong rapport with Pele and Mohammed Ali (especially after she hit him on the jaw to gain his attention). In the recent "Reuters/Press Gazette" launch of the Newspaper Hall of Fame she was listed as one of the forty most influential journalists in the last forty years and was described as 'the most versatile reporter ever'.