Decorated war veteran and disco-dancer passes away

One of Ireland’s last surviving Second World War veterans, who was awarded France’s highest honour last year, has died at the age of 99.

John Leslie, a cousin of Winston Churchill and whose family seat was Castle Leslie in Co Monaghan, died at home with family at his side.

“The Leslie Family are sad to announce that Sir Jack Leslie passed away peacefully in his sleep this morning surrounded by his family,” they said.

They described him as an active Knight of Malta, art connoisseur, water colourist, ecologist, disco-dancer, and restorer of historic buildings.

Last November, he was awarded France’s highest honour for his role in the country’s liberation.

He toasted the Legion d’Honneur with a glass of champagne in the French embassy in Dublin and dedicated it to “all soldiers from the island of Ireland who fought and died between the two great wars”.

Mr Leslie became an international news sensation in 2002 as his castle hosted Paul McCartney’s wedding to Heather Mills. With the global media gathered at the gates of the estate near Glaslough he announced the superstar’s nuptials were taking place behind the gates but that it was “a secret”.

Known for his love of house music in his later years, he celebrated his 85th birthday in 2001 by travelling to Ibiza to party at Privilege, then the world’s biggest nightclub.

The family said this taste in music was “perhaps one of the most endearing of Uncle Jack’s hobbies”.

“Each week he would visit the local nightclub to dance to the ‘boom boom’ music,” the family said. “He quickly gained respect in the clubbing community to the extent there is a nightclub named after him in Clones, Co Monaghan.”

Mr Leslie enlisted in the Second Battalion of the Irish Guards in August 1937, at the age of 21. Three years later he was part of the British Expeditionary Force, landing in France in May 1940.

Commanding a section that battled for two hours to defend Boulogne-sur-Mer against advancing Germans, he was captured and spent the next five years as a prisoner of war. It was believed for a time that he had been killed in action.

During his captivity, he risked his life to spirit out a postcard to his cousin Churchill pleading for a prisoner of war exchange to allow some of his comrades in the camp who had taken ill to be freed. The missive hangs in the Imperial War Museum in London.

In 2009, Mr Leslie published his memoirs, Never A Dull Moment.