Patterson was awarded the Douglas Wilkie Medal for doing the least for football in the best and fairest manner. His dislike for the game of Australian rules football was illustrated when he coated a leather football in cream cake, and fed it to a camel. Depictions in art In 1999, expatriate Australian photographer Polly Borland created a memorable image of Sir Les Patterson (seated on a toilet, waving an Australian flag) as part of a series entitled Australians, which was exhibited at the respective National Portrait Galleries in London (2000) and Canberra (2001). In 2000, a portrait of Humphries as Patterson by painter Bill Leak won the Packing Room Prize at the Archibald Prize. In 2014, Tim Storrier's full-length painting, The Member, Dr Sir Leslie Colin Patterson KCB AO, also won the Packing Room Prize. Fictional biography Early life and education Sir Leslie Colin Patterson , was born on 1 April 1942, in Taren Point, Southern Sydney. In later life, he claimed descent from a certain Ebenezer Patterson, who had been sent to Australia as a convict in the nineteenth century. Little is known of Patterson's present-day family beyond from the fact that he has a sister whose name is either Lois or Noreen (sources differ) and a brother named Gerard, who became a clergyman and later served as an Advisor on Religious Affairs to the Lord Howe Island Chamber of Commerce. In a brief memoir published in 2006, Father Gerard Patterson described his brother Les as "the archetypical Australian scallywag", who had been their mother's favourite. Father Patterson further recalled that his brother had a "rough and ready education". Through the influence of their uncle Leo, both brothers were sent to Melbourne to attend the prestigious Xavier College, although Les remained there for only 1½ terms. Returning to Sydney, he attended Our Lady of Dolours' Boys School and completed his Intermediate Certificate at Parramatta High School. Patterson commenced tertiary study at the Kogarah TAFE. Prior to his appointment as Cultural Attaché, he completed what he described as a "five-day crash course in World Culture" at the University of Sydney. Only a few years later, he would receive an honorary doctorate in Australian Studies. Personal life Although Father Gerard Patterson noted that he and Les had "drifted apart" after he had entered the priesthood, he would later officiate at his brother's wedding to Gwenneth Lorraine Dolan, a former hand model.