At the start of World War II, the family moved to Reading, where they all shared one rented room in a large house.
[2] In 1948, Leigh was recruited by the Royal Opera at Covent Garden and was, at 19 years old, the youngest principal among such future stars as Geraint Evans and Sylvia Fisher.
The previous day, impresario C. B. Cochran had signed her in the leading role of Bless the Bride, a new musical by Vivian Ellis and A. P. Herbert.
She sang Sophie in Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, under Erich Kleiber, and the Marzelline in Beethoven's Fidelio under Rudolf Kempe.
[5] After her Covent Garden career, she married American bass-baritone James Pease, a widower 15 years her senior, who soon died from a heart attack while they were both singing at the Zürich Opera.