Ralph Winston Fox were also killed near to Lesser in Lopera. While recovering, he learned Spanish, was introduced to Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, and worked in the office of the newly-formed British Battalion in Albacete during the Battle of Jarama. After the battle Lesser returned to Britain to seek proper medical treatment, carrying the list of casualties from Jarama. Upon his recovery, Lesser went to Paris, where he worked in the International Brigades recruitment office, assisting in the organisation of newly arrived volunteers and later leading a group of female volunteers to Spain in a fisherman's boat. He then went to Barcelona where he was told to rejoin the International Brigades, but failed a medical examination and was told that he would be unable to fight, a setback which led to a career in journalism. Speaking about his experience in Spain to historian Max Arthur in 2009, Lesser said, "Asked if I would do it all again, I used to give an unequivocal reply that of course I would. But now I don't know if I would. I'm a very old man now and one of the things I experienced was that those of us who survived Spain experienced different sorts of treatment when we got back." Journalism Radio and early Daily Worker career With no prior experience of journalism, Lesser began producing and broadcasting propaganda radio programmes for the Republican cause. He was responsible for English language broadcasts at a Barcelona headquarters established to broadcast on shortwave in German, Italian, Portuguese and English. During this time the Daily Worker published an interview with Independent Labour Party volunteer Frank Frankford, conducted by Lesser, which had been edited to suggest that Frankford was accusing the Trotskyist POUM of fraternisation with fascists; and which claimed the POUM battalion commander was a fascist agent and that arms used in the May Days had been supplied by the Nationalists. Frankford later told Bernard Crick that Lesser had embellished his words but that "there are things still to be explained" and that fraternisation did occur. Crick speculated that the claims attributed to Frankford, in particular the admission that he had "committed the crime of taking part in the armed rising of Fascists against the anti-Fascist Government", may have been the inspiration for the "bizarre and pathetic" confessions made by characters in George Orwell's Animal Farm. Lesser then became a correspondent for the Daily Worker