Ann Leslie has worked as a foreign "fireman" (someone who jets into trouble spots around the world) since the Sixties. Her first job after studying English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, was at the Daily Express. She started in the Manchester office but moved to London and was given a column with the headline, "She's young, she's provocative and she's only 22". She started to get sent on foreign jobs and after a spell working freelance for magazines including Nova and Harper's and Queen, she joined the Daily Mail. She has reported widely on foreign events: the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nelson Mandela's release from jail and the coup against Gorbachev. Her work has taken her to Bosnia, Albania, El Salvador, Iraq and other dangerous parts of the world. She is the winner of 11 British Press Awards and in October 1999 was awarded the prestigious James Cameron Award, given for "an outstanding contribution to journalism". She says a "daughter-of-the-Raj imperviousness" and the "ability...to play the bird-brain has proved...to be an essential component in the female fireman's armoury".