Publisher of military history books and husband of Jilly Cooper
Leo Cooper, who has died aged 79 after suffering from Parkinson's disease, was a publisher with a zeal for military history, who also enjoyed some notoriety as the husband of the novelist Jilly Cooper.
Leo's hospitality was out of all proportion to the size of his establishment. Every day, for 20-odd years, he kept open house at his "branch office", the Oporto pub in London's Covent Garden, where the company might include anyone from a general to a dustman. You might not have Leo to yourself for more than a minute or two he really did do a lot of business at the bar but you could always be sure of a drink.