Desert Island Discs

Sue Lawley's castaway is foreign correspondent Ann Leslie in a programme first broadcast in 2004. Ann Leslie died in June 2023, aged 82. The distinguished foreign correspondent Ann Leslie has witnessed and reported on some of the most significant events of the past 30 years including the fall of the Berlin wall; the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev and Nelson Mandela's final walk to freedom. She has reported on uprisings, massacres and wars, collecting numerous awards as she has done so. She grew up in India and Pakistan and loved India and its culture. When she was around 10 years old she was sent to a boarding school in England. From school she went to Oxford and from there she joined the Daily Express. She was brought to London and was given her own column at the age of twenty-two. But she resigned, saying she wanted to do proper reporting, and it was David English's support for her that saw her start writing foreign news stories and set the course for her distinguished career.