24 Facts About James Leasor

James Leasor was a prolific British writer of historical books and thrillers.

James Leasor was one of the best-selling British authors of the 20th century.

Thomas James Leasor was born on 20 December 1923 in Erith, Kent, the younger of two children of Richard Leasor and Christina Hall.

James Leasor's father was from Lancashire and his mother was Scottish.

Early in World War 2, as soon as he was old enough, Leasor enlisted in the Buffs.

James Leasor was commissioned into the Royal Berkshire Regiment and volunteered for service in the Far East, where he served in Burma with the Lincolnshire Regiment during World War II.

James Leasor was wounded in action on 8 May 1944 in the Arakan, and treated at 25 Indian Casualty Clearing Station.

James Leasor later returned to Burma as an Army Observer for the 12th Army, at that time in Rangoon.

James Leasor reckoned that he had visited practically every town in these regions by the time he returned to the UK in mid-1946.

James Leasor's novel, NTR: Nothing to Report, was a semi-autobiographical account of some of his experiences in India and Burma during the war.

James Leasor joined the Daily Express in 1948 and became private secretary to the proprietor, Lord Beaverbrook.

James Leasor wrote his first book, a comedy titled Not Such a Bad Day, in 1946, by hand in the jungles of Burma on airgraphs, single sheets of light-sensitive paper, which were reduced to the size of microdots and sent to England in instalments to be enlarged to full size.

James Leasor's mother typed the manuscript and sent it to an agent, who found a publisher in Leicester.

James Leasor became a full-time author in the 1960s after the success of his novel Passport to Oblivion, a thriller featuring Dr Jason Love, which became one of the best selling books of the decade and was filmed as Where the Spies Are starring David Niven.

James Leasor wrote nine more thrillers featuring Jason Love, as well a string of other novels.

James Leasor was the guiding hand behind the memoirs of the Duke of Windsor.

James Leasor had a great interest in cars and owned pre-war specimens such as a rare Cord roadster, which he made use of in the Jason Love novels, and an SS Jaguar 100 which featured in his Aristo Autos series.

James Leasor married barrister Joan Bevan on 1 December 1951 and they had three sons.

James Leasor lived for his last 40 years at Swallowcliffe Manor, near Salisbury in Wiltshire.

James Leasor died in Salisbury on 10 September 2007, aged 83, and is buried in the churchyard of St Peter's Church in Swallowcliffe.

James Leasor was frustrated by people accosting him at drinks parties and saying it was virtually impossible for a new author to be published on merit alone, without a fashionable backstory to excite the publisher's interest.

James Leasor would be hard to tie to any particular location or schedule, and all contact would be made through the agent.

James Leasor wrote the first three chapters and a synopsis of an epic historical saga, loosely based on the origins of Hong Kong-based trading companies like Jardine Matheson and Swire, and Gillon Aitken took it with the agreed story about MacAllan around London-based publishers.

Aitken and James Leasor realised that this could not go on for ever and they revealed the deception.