When a guidebook to Ireland described his family as being 'mildly eccentric', Desmond Leslie took offence and wrote to the publishers informing them that, on the contrary, the Leslies were very eccentric. Son of writer Sir Shane Leslie and brother of historian Anita Leslie, Desmond Leslie has never before been the subject of a biography. Throughout his life, he maintained a reputation for unconventionality. Hardly surprising, when one of his godparents...