Les and Tex drive ahead

From being the youngest of 11 children brought up in a council house in Southend, dubbed a thicko at school (he was dyslexic as it turned out), Les Heal has done remarkably well.

But the founder and owner of the eponymous fireplace centre in London Road Leigh - one of the first of its kind in Essex - would far rather have been an artist than a successful businessman.

Les has written a screenplay, a musical and has crafted a series of delightful models of cartoon-type vehicles which he hopes one day might become a Disney-style animation.

At the moment, however, all the projects are very much at the dream stage. For try as he might, he cannot find a taker for any of this ideas.

"It's always the same story," he says. "They say come back when you've got somewhere, or you've got someone to represent you.

"But I don't live in that world, and I haven't got the contacts or the network. I never get past the secretary. But it would only take one lucky break ..."

Svelte and trim at 57, Les is one of those people who are never still. His projects don't leave much time for flopping down in front of the box of a night.

"I never watch TV," he confesses. "I've always found coming in and writing or making models really relaxing after a day at the shop."

His projects are all-consuming and as a result drive Penny, his wife of 36 years, to distraction. "I can be talking to you now and all of a sudden I'll have a thought and I'm not there any more," he explains ruefully.

"My brain is like a computer. Penny gets really fed up when I start playing the guitar at three in the morning."

Les's family - they have two grown-up sons, Craig and Dean, both in their 30s and involved in the business - treat his artistic endeavours with, you suspect, a certain degree of eye-rolling indulgence: "They say, yes, that's excellent and that's it."

However, there is no doubting the dynamism of his output. The models of Tex, a car and his sidekick, the watering-can Drip, along with the baddies - big beefy trucks - are exquisite.

He shows me a pictorial synopsis of the cartoon he has in mind. All the drawings are skilfully executed, all the characters carefully thought out.

Les accepts that without investing huge sums to bring Tex and his crew to life, the idea stands little chance of getting off the ground.

But he would love his musical, Someone, set in wartime Britain in the early 1940s, to be performed. The Palace Theatre, his one real hope, closes its doors on Saturday.

The script is well-structured and it's a surprise it hasn't been brought to life on stage yet, especially given the quality of the songs, all composed and written by himself.

As a child, he had always been creative. With so many children (space was so tight that one bedroom housed three sets of bunkbeds) his painter and decorator father could not afford a TV.

"We had to make our own entertainment," he says. "I can remember sitting round a big wooden kitchen table, drawing, drawing, drawing."

At school at Eastwood High, Les failed to shine. He was put in what were then known as remedial classes because of his then undetected dyslexia. The will to write was there, despite the constant frustration of being unable to form words in the conventional way.

At 12 he was once asked to write a story about Guy Fawkes. His teacher was impressed by the content, and asked him to copy it out, with the correct spellings. "It took five goes and even then there was red pencil everywhere," he recalls.

Les left school at 15 without qualifications and went into bricklaying. Before long his talent for creating unusual brick fireplaces became apparent and he started his own business in his early 20s.

He would make up stories for his two sons when they were children, but wrote a beautifully illustrated book for his grandchildren about the exploits of a little car called Rusty, who later was transformed into Tex.

Spelling still remains a problem - Les has to get one of the family to check his words. "If I want to write 'top' I'll write 'pot'," he says. "Which is very frustrating."

The fact remains that despite his success in business and the good life it has brought him, he's still an artist manqu. Ask him if he would have liked to gone into further education or art college and he nods vigorously.

"I would have loved to do this professionally," he explains. "It would be my dream."

Building a dream - brick fireplace specialist Les Heal has drawn since he was a young boy. For his grandchildren he created a set of characters centered around Tex the car, which he would love to see as an animated cartoon

(Right) Tex thinks he has escaped but One Eye comes crashing through the side of the building - Tex, his friends and foes are the creations of Les

Picture: ROBIN WOOSEY

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.