Is Caledonia TV’s Creative Director and responsible for directing and executive producing much of the company’s output. A former political journalist, Les’s work for Scottish TV ranged from the 24-part history series Scotland’s Story and a film about the British monarchy The Enchanted Glass, both for Channel 4, to the popular 30 part Scotland’s War and a personal view series about Scotland with journalist George Rosie.
For Caledonia, he has directed hundreds of films for the BBC and ITV networks, Channel 4, Channel 5, BBC Scotland, Scottish Television, BBC Alba, The History Channel, RTE, TG4, ZDF, ORF and Arte. Network credits include The Battle For Britain, for BBC1's Panorama, and Chosen People, a feature length documentary for BBC2. His experience ranges across documentary, current affairs, history, arts, factual entertainment and drama. He has won awards for his documentaries from Bafta, The Celtic Media Festival and the BT Press Awards.
Les is co-author with Seona Robertson of the book Scotland’s War. He has also published a novel Fire in the Head and several history books – Islay Voices, The Drowned and the Saved : how war came to the Hebrides (winner of the Saltire History Award) and Putting the Tea in Britain : How Scots invented our national drink.