Leslie Norris

George Leslie Norris (21 May 1921 – 6 April 2006), was a prize-winning Welsh poet and short story writer.

He taught at academic institutions in Britain and the United States, including Brigham Young University.

Norris is considered one of the most important Welsh writers of the post-war period, and his literary publications have won many prizes.

George Leslie Norris was born on 21 May 1921 in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales.

His parents were George and Mary Jane Norris.

Leslie had two younger brothers, Eric and Gordon.

His father George worked as a miner, but after First World War became a milkman because of his declining health.

Leslie grew up in Wales during the Great Depression.

He enjoyed reading books and playing sports as a kid.

He attended Georgetown Primary School from 1926 to 1931.

He attended Cyfarthfa Castle Grammar School after that.

Throughout school, Norris was involved in sports like football and boxing.

By age 12, Leslie knew he wanted to be a poet and he went to listen to acclaimed poets like Dylan Thomas and Vernon Watkins.

He published his first poem in 1938 at the age of seventeen.

That same year, Norris had to drop out of school due to financial pressures.

He began working as a rates clerk in the Town Hall in Merthyr.

When he was nineteen years old he joined the Royal Air Force during the Second World War.

In May 1940 he trained as a pilot.

He got blood poisoning, however, from steel ropes, and was discharged in June 1941.

His father died the next year of cancer.

Norris returned to his work at the town hall.

He became a soccer referee and was part of the Merthyr Referees Society.

Leslie married Catherine (Kitty) Morgan in July 1948, and they remained together the rest of his life.

While publicly the couple maintained that they had no children, Norris confided to close friends that they had one child who died in infancy.

Kitty was a chemist, and Norris was her second husband.

Shortly after their marriage, Leslie was accepted at the City of Coventry Teacher Training College.

After Leslie's graduation, he taught at the Grass Royal School in Yeovil, Somerset.

In 1952, he transferred to Southdown Junior School in Bath, Somerset.

He later became headmaster of Westergate School in West Sussex.

Leslie was a principal lecturer at the West Sussex Institute from 1956 to 1974.

He obtained a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Southampton in 1958.

He secured a job as a lecturer in 1958 at Bognor Regis College of Education and later taught at the West Sussex Institute of Higher Learning.

There, his wife taught as well until 1966.

Leslie became a visiting professor at the University of Washington in 1973.

He was so impacted by his experience teaching in America that he returned to England only to resign his principal lectureship at Bognor Regis.

In 1976, he and his wife visited New England.

Leslie was Residential Poet at Eton in 1977.

From 1980–1982 he visited to Seattle, Washington and East Carolina University.

In 1983 Norris was invited to teach for six months at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, United States of America.

He settled with his wife, Catherine Morgan, and remained there until his death.