Leslie Clarence Rees was born on 28 December 1905 in the Perth suburb of Bayswater, the youngest of six children of Mary Elizabeth Rees (née Wilkinson) and a school teacher,John Henry Rees. His father’s alcoholism meant the family was in considerable financial stress.
In 1924 Leslie was awarded a scholarship to the University of Western Australia, where he edited the student magazine, The Black Swan. Fellow contributors included H.C.(Nugget)Coombs, Paul Hasluck and Coralie Clarke (who later became his wife).
On graduating with a BA in 1927 he worked briefly as a teacher, before joining the West Australian as a cadet journalist. In 1929 he won a scholarship to study in London. The following year he was joined by Coralie and they married in 1931. He continued as a London correspondent for the West Australian but also became the chief drama critic for The Era, and as such interviewed many leading literary figures, including James Joyce.
In 1936 Leslie and Coralie Rees returned to Australia. They settled in Sydney and Rees became Federal Drama Editor for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, a job he held until retirement in 1966.
In 1942 he published Digit Dick on the Barrier Reef, which became the first of a long and much loved series of children’s illustrated books. The final Digit Dick book, _Digit Dick and the Zoo Plo_t was published in 1982, but his final children’s book,_ The Seagull Who Liked Cricket_, was published in 1997, only three years before his death, in Sydney on 10 August, 2000.
- Writers:
- Dr Dorothy Erickson
Joanna Mendelssohn
- Date written:
- 2010
- Last updated:
- 2022
