Leslie Wilson first came to Commonword in 1977, attending the newly formed writers group with old exercise books and diaries and an idea. He had a very unsettled childhood, and attended a series of special and approved schools. This left him with an extraordinary range of perception and sensitivities but without a standard language to communicate in. His struggle was mainly with a lack of conventional spelling, grammar and punctuation. In place of a standard language, Les created his own. There was debate when publishing as to change his work into standard English, but it was felt to do so would take away Les’s unique vision. There are many occasions where Les’s spelling clearly shows his association of certain ideas: for example, ‘cellister’  fo ‘solicitor’, and other examples where his language cannot be ‘corrected’. As such Commonword published his debut novel, DOBROYED, as no ‘major’ publisher would. It was published with only minimal changes in punctuation and very occasionally in spelling and grammar.