Leslie Roberts (1) (1897–1980)

Leslie Roberts was a journalist, author, and broadcaster. He was born in Wales in 1897 and came to Canada with his parents at age eleven. After serving in the First World War he went into journalism, working in the 1920s in Montreal, Ottawa, and New York. Roberts took a leave of absence to complete his first book, These Be Your Gods, in 1929, and never held a staff position again, deriving his income from his freelance writing and broadcasting. Through the 1930s and 1940s, he wrote for Canadian and American magazines like Maclean's, Toronto Star Weekly, The Standard, Saturday Night, Harper's, Atlantic Monthly, Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, and others.
In the Second World War, Roberts served as a war correspondent with the Canadian Navy and, after D-day, with the Canadian Army in Europe. His writing appeared regularly in the Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s and 1950s, and in the 1960s began to broadcast regular commentaries and editorials on CJAD radio in Montreal and CFRB radio in Toronto.Some of his other notable books included Canada's War in the Air (1942), Malta Spitfire (with Buzz Beurling, 1943), Canada's War at Sea (with Stephen Leacock, 1944), Winged Peace (with Billy Bishop, 1944), Home from the Cold Wars (1948), The Life and Times of C. D. Howe (1957), There Shall Be Wings (1959), The Chief: A Biography of Maurice Duplessis (1963), and Montreal: A History (1969). Roberts died in 1980.