Goldings boy Leslie Thomas, well for a short time.

From an aspiring bricklayer to a best selling author

Best selling author Leslie Thomas is both famous and rich. And he spends four hours a day at his desk even though he need never work again, writes The Sunday Times.

Leslie Thomas, the bestselling author, has come a long way since his days as a Dr Barnardo's boy with aspirations to be a bricklayer.

Thomas is one of Britain's most popular writers, with 30 titles to his name and international sales of more than 14 million copies. The paperback of his latest novel, Chloe's Song, comes out in August and his latest two-book contract is worth 500,000 pounds.

Leslie spends more than two-thirds of the year writing and puts in about four hours a day. He can often be seen on television in documentaries and talk shows. Some of his appearances include Parkinson and This is Your Life. But he has not forgotten his humble beginnings and is a vice-president of Dr Barnardo's, now called Barnardo's.

The 67-year-old author became a household name in the 1960s with his novel The Virgin Soldiers. He has more than enough money to live comfortably, but is rarely extravagant. Leslie says: "If you equate money with success, I suppose it gives you a certain amount of freedom. We do like traveling to faraway places, like the West Indies and South Pacific."

He is married to Diana, his business manager, and they have a son of 27, Matthew, who is a scriptwriter. From his first marriage, Leslie has three children, Lois, 41, Mark, 36, and Gareth, 30. Lois has 13-year-old twin boys.

Home for Leslie and his wife is a magnificent Georgian canonry in Salisbury. The property was built in l719, but there has been a house on the site since 1298, and Leslie has records of every occupant. The two-acre garden, which backs on to the River Avon, is the writer's pride and joy.

He bought the canonry 10 years ago for 350,000 pounds, and has spent the same amount again on refurbishments. "When the estate agent pulled up outside the place it was in a very poor state, but I said I would buy it before I even got out of the car! Today the house must be worth over 1m pounds and is basically our savings. I believe in passing on wealth to children, but we would not do without ourselves merely to leave some money to the kids. We try to help them all in fairly modest ways. As for Barnardo's, it is now the third-biggest charity in the country. I don't think I will leave anything to them."

Lackadaisical is how Leslie describes his attitude to money. The other day he went through his dinner suit and found 80 pounds in the pocket. On one occasion when Diana could not get to the bank she went through all his clothes in the wardrobe and came out with 17 pounds in small change. "In spite of that I never have any cash on me," says Leslie.

He is the owner of three second-hand Mercedes, one of which is 17-years-old and worth about 1,500 pounds. But as the vehicles are all in perfect order, he is happy to keep them.

Leslie was eight at the outbreak of war and went to elementary school in Newport, Gwent, where he was good at English but not much else. His happy childhood came to an abrupt end at the age of 12 when his father drowned after his ship was torpedoed in l943. His mother died six months later and Leslie and his younger brother, Roy, found themselves in a Dr Barnardo's home in Kingston Hill, Surrey.

He says: "We had an uncle who was well off and he made some attempt to get us returned from the orphanage, but it was a very strict organisation. Any chances of us being allowed to live with him were dashed when he offered the Barnardo's representative a gin and tonic."

The orphanage sent Leslie to a local technical school where he learnt to be a bricklayer. He says he was hopeless and claims the walls he built always fell down.

He earned his first money from writing at the age of 13, in an essay competition. He won half a crown (12 1/2 p) for his story about a day out at Norwich - he had been evacuated to Norfolk to avoid the doodlebugs raining down on London.

Years later, in l963, his life as a Barnardos boy was evoked in his book, This Time Next Week. His autobiography is still in print and his own children studied it for 0-level English. "Some of them had not read it until then either," he says.

Leslie received 350 pounds for the hardback version and 1,000 pounds for the paperback. He was 32 at the time and able to pay off his 50 pound bank loan, various domestic debts, and splash out on a new typewriter.

Leslie's first job was reporting on the local newspaper in Woodford, Essex. He worked for a couple of months on trial, in return for bus fares. He soon earned 50p a week, then 1 pound, before doing National Service at 18, which paid 1.50 pounds a week.

He says: "I wanted to go into an infantry regiment and see the world. They sent me to Singapore, but put me in the pay corps as a clerk in an accounts office, the worst possible place for me. Even now I am not good at the administration of money matters. I leave all that to Diana."

By the age of 25, Leslie worked for The Evening News in London, earning 20 pounds a week, which was enough for him to get married and pay a mortgage. He became a widely traveled newspaperman, covering major events, including Royal tours, the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann and the funeral of Sir Winston Churchill.

His experience as a national serviceman was by no means a waste of time. It resulted in The Virgin Soldiers, the bestselling novel which has sold 7 million copies worldwide and was made into a successful film by Carl Foreman. Leslie received a 3,000 pound advance for the book and became a full-time writer. For the film rights he was paid 10,000 pounds and spent 3,000 pounds of it on a family cruise to South America. It was about this time that he realised he was a wealthy man--because he paid the electricity bill twice! Leslie used to do a lot of public speaking, but gave it up 10 years ago when the constant travel stopped him writing. He says: "I did it because I am a working-class boy and I could get 2,000 pounds or 2,500 pounds for an after-dinner speech. The problem is you end up as a stand-up comedian. One week I spoke at three engagements, but I don't enjoy performing to that extent. An agency recently offered me 5,000 pounds for an evening's work."

Any spare cash that is not consumed by living expenses or the Inland Revenue is invested in Queen Victoria stamps used in foreign countries and old maps of islands around Britain.

He has never taken any interest in shares, but struck lucky with the Norwich Union flotation. Leslie had put a substantial amount each month into a Norwich Union pension fund, which at the time had been going for five years. When the company floated on the stock market last June he received 4,500 free shares, and bought another 500.

Leslie says: "Never having owned shares before, it was a great novelty looking at the papers every morning. We were actually in America and I was there when the share price hit 530p, almost the absolute peak, so I sold out and got 26,500 pounds. We put 25,000 pounds of that into a Treasury Deposit with Barclays, earning a fixed 6.5 per cent gross. I suppose it will go towards half our tax bill."

If Leslie had stayed in South Wales and the tragedies of his young life had not happened, what would he be doing now?

"I might have been a sailor, like my father and grandfather, or ended up in a shipping office," he says. "Certainly had I not written books I would now be a retired journalist."

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