The Hon Desmond Leslie, who died on February 24th aged 79, could rightly have claimed many titles. He was variously an RAF pilot, author, composer, filmmaker, nightclub director, estate manager and spiritualist, while he also fostered a reputation as an eccentric.
Throughout his life he was a pioneer of the unusual. One of the first proponents of flying saucers and UFOs, he co-wrote with George Adamaski the bestselling Flying Saucers have Landed which was translated into more than 50 languages. He jumped into electronic music at its earliest stages and set 12 of Shakespeare's plays to music.
He was among the first of the Anglo-Irish big house families to try and turn the family estate into a viable business and as part of that venture introduced a then racy notion - a nightclub in rural Monaghan, Annabel's on the Bog, which he modelled on the more famous Annabel's of London. An idea before its time, circumstances and clerical displeasure resulted in its closure.
In his writing career he followed in the footsteps of his father, Sir Shane Leslie, a poet and biographer, and of his older sister, novelist Anita Leslie.
Born Desmond Arthur Peter Leslie, on June 29th, 1921, he was brought up at Castle Leslie, Glaslough, Co Monaghan, part of an old and well-connected Anglo-Irish aristocratic family. The Leslie estate had originally been granted to Bishop John Leslie in the 17th century by King Charles II.
His father, Sir Shane, was a first cousin of Winston Churchill. Sir Shane converted to
Catholicism, learnt Irish and stood twice as a candidate for the Irish Nationalist Party in Derry. His mother's (Lady Marjorie) father, Henry Ide, was a governor general of the Philippines and American ambassador to Spain. Desmond Leslie was the youngest of three children. The novelist Anita (Anne Theodosia Moira) was the eldest, born in 1914, while John Norman Ide was born in 1916 and succeeded their father as baronet, to become Sir John.
Desmond Leslie was educated at Ampleforth College and spent a year at Trinity College Dublin. He was an RAF fighter pilot from 1942 to 1945.
During that time he wrote his first novel, Careless Lovers, which was a wartime bestseller. He also met his first wife, German-born actress and singer, the late Agnes Bernelle, whom he married in August 1945.
In that year he also became involved in film production and made a film in Ireland, Stranger at My Door. Although his films were not commercial or mainstream successes, he spoke presciently of the potential of a proper film industry in Ireland and the benefits of appropriate tax designation. In 1949, he co-directed Another Shore in which his wife starred.
The couple lived in London until 1963 during which time Desmond Leslie developed an interest in electronic music - a number of his scores were used in BBC productions. In 1963, he famously punched the BBC's drama critic, Bernard Levin, in front of an audience of millions, on the television programme That was the Week that Was. The critic had given a bad review to Agnes Bernelle's one-woman show From Brecht to Brecht, Cabarets of Savagery and Delight, which she had previously presented at the Dublin Theatre Festival.
The Leslies moved back to Castle Leslie in 1963 and during their 24-year marriage, which ended in 1969, they had three children: two sons, Mark and Sean, and a daughter Wendyl. Desmond Leslie also had a relationship with Jennifer Fibbs and they had a daughter, Antonia.
During this time his writing continued apace and included the spoof, Space Race, co authored with his friend the astronomer Patrick Moore.
Other works included Pardon My Return, Angels Weep, Hold Back the Night, The Amazing Mr Lutterworth, Suzy Saucer and Ronnie Rocket and The Jesus File in which he turned the trial of Jesus Christ into a modern courtroom drama. When he moved back to Castle Leslie in the 1960s he established the nightclub, and an equestrian centre, which was eventually sold on. After his marriage to Agnes Bernelle ended, he married Helen Strong and the couple had two daughters, Samantha and Camilla.
He developed a great interest in spiritualism and in an interview in 1980 reported that he spent "an hour every Monday night making mental contact through meditation with members of a Spiritual Healing Group scattered around the world".
This fuelled his reputation as an eccentric, which he fostered. A guidebook once referred to the Leslie family as "mildly eccentric", which prompted him to write to the publishers to point out that the family was "very eccentric". A witty letterwriter who loathed officialdom, he engaged in lengthy correspondence with State agencies, which suffered the wrath of his penmanship.
He and his second wife retired to St Jeannet, in the south of France, in the late 1980s where he continued writing. His daughter Samantha took over the running of the family estate with her husband, Ultan Bannon. An unfinished novel, Pandora, about the women in his life is expected to be completed by his daughter Camilla.
Desmond Leslie is survived by his second wife Helen Strong, his six children, Mark, Sean, Wendyl, Antonia, Samantha and Camilla and his brother, Sir John Leslie.
The Hon Desmond Leslie: born 1921; died, February 2001