Leslie Thomas said book title was 'my best three words'
The best-selling novelist, Leslie Thomas, once described the title of his most famous book, The Virgin Soldiers, has the "best three words I ever wrote".
Thomas, who has died aged 83, grew up in a seafaring family in Newport, south Wales, spent time in a children's home before becoming a journalist and going on to work in Fleet Street.
The Virgin Soldiers made him a household name and was the beginning of a hugely successful literary career that saw him awarded the OBE in 2004.
In the BBC Wales programme Great Welsh Writers, Thomas described the ambition that drove his creativity.
07 May 2014
- From the section Wales