Background

Les Carlyon was born on June 10, 1942, in Australia as Leslie Allen Carlyon. He brought up in straightened circumstances in the small Victorian town of Elmore, about 160 kilometers north-east of Melbourne and 60 kilometers from the gold mining town of Bendigo.

Education

Les Carlyon attended Melbourne High School. After graduation, he enrolled at the University of Melbourne to study journalism.

Career

Les Carlyon began his career as a cadet reporter with the Sun News-Pictorial (now The Herald Sun), was editor of The Age at the tender age of 33, and in the early 1980s, having spent time as a visiting lecturer in journalism at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, became editor-in-chief of the Herald and Weekly Times.

Carlyon was well-known for his articles on horse racing. True Grit: Tales from a Decade on the Turf is a collection of Carlyon's articles on this subject. The series tells about the horses, the jockeys, the Melbourne Cup, the races themselves, and more. "The horses, winners and losers are so well sketched that Carlyon's collection of columns emerges from old newsprint to continue shining brilliantly," praised Kevin Childs in a Law Institute Journal review.

In 2001 Carlyon published his book Gallipoli. In this work he provided extensive information on an important event in Australian history, that of the invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey on April 25, 1915, during World War I. The invasion was poorly planned by British General Ian Hamilton, and 8,709 Australian men died and another 19,441 were wounded. Carlyon discusses the steps of the poorly planned battle, describes the battlefields, explains why the invasion failed, and talks about some of the men who fought there. Before writing the book, Carlyon researched for years, including many trips to Gallipoli to learn about the land and the battlefields. Echo News contributor Jeremy Fenton concluded, "It is a book to be read again and again as new details present themselves and the 'reality' of the big picture sinks in for those of us lucky enough never to have been through such an experience." Gallipoli was commercially successful in Australia, New Zealand, and England.

Carlyon followed Gallipoli with the magisterial The Great War, about the horror of the Western Front, for which he won the Prime Minister's Prize for History in 2007.

Achievements

• The book Gallipoli became the basis for the Australian 2015 television miniseries Gallipoli, released in the year of the 100th anniversary of the campaign.
  
  In 2014 for the "eminent service to literature through the promotion of the national identity as an author, editor and journalist, to the understanding and appreciation of Australia's war history, and to the horseracing industry" Les Carlyon was invested as a Companion of the Order of Australia.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Gallipoli

    (Gallipoli remains one of the most poignant battlefronts o...)

    2001
  • The Great War

    (Self-interest was the dominant note of the years immediat...)

    2006
  • True grit: Tales from a decade on the turf 1996
  • Paper chase: The press under investigation 1982

Views

Quotations: "In many ways journalism has got better over the years, but one of the things that's been a bit lost is that skill to go somewhere and write a colour piece that tells what it looked like, what the people looked like, how it smelled and how it felt. Too much journalism now is done on the telephone."

Personality

Les Carlyon was a straight-talking man who declared himself opposed to political correctness because it killed curiosity. He was a mentor, role model, and inspiration for generations of journalists. But first and foremost it was about his writing. Carlyon had both an ear and a voice that were unique among writers and an unsurpassed ability to combine humor and irreverence with incisive, intelligent analysis.

Carlyon's words on paper seemed effortless. Great writing hides great effort. Carlyon didn’t want his reader to know about the sweat. He insisted that the reader shouldn't notice the writer. "It's simply to portray what you saw, what you heard, what you smelled," he said.

Les Carlyon loved the race track, the dew on the turf at a Flemington dawn, the fine lines of thoroughbreds, the snorting power of tonnes of horseflesh throwing themselves towards a winning post. And he knew and watched with the keen eye of an artist the characters of the track: the spivs, the swells, the winners, the losers and those who, like him, were there for the appreciation, the near adoration, of horses.

He immersed himself like few others in the subjects that took his fancy. He spent seven weeks walking Gallipoli, breathing its dust in sunshine and shivering among trenchlines during a snowstorm, before setting to the job of writing about it.

Physical Characteristics: Carlyon was tall and thin.

Quotes from others about the person

• Australian journalist Harry Gordon: "He's been called Australia's Damon Runyon, but that tag is far too limiting to do him justice. Certainly his turf stories are usually character-driven gems. But read him on Anzac Cove, or Bradman, or Ted Whitten, or any part of the essence of this country. He writes with gritty elegance."
  
  Bulletin editor-in-chief Garry Linnell: "As a gifted storyteller, he is without peer."
  
  Close friend, colleague Andrew Rule: "He had lean, prowling figure, always in his shirt sleeves although he had a neatly ironed shirt and tie. He would prowl the floor, keeping an eye on every aspect of the paper, and often rewrote the big stories that mattered."

Interests

• horses, war history

Connections

Les Carlyon was married to Denise Stuart Patterson. They gave birth to three children.

Spouse:

Denise Stuart Patterson

Son:

Patrick Carlyon

Son:

Richard Carlyon

Daughter:

Kate Carlyon

friend, colleague:

Andrew Rule

colleague:

Graham Perkin