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Sydney Blencowe Memoirs

Sydney Blencowe, who was my father, was born in Devizes on 14/07/1879. After leaving school at the age of 14 he was articled for 4 years to a firm of surveyors in Wiltshire. When we had qualified as a surveyor he went to work for Lever Brothers in Port Sunlight, Cheshire.

In 1900 he joined the Wiltshire Yeomanry to fight in the South African War. Here he developed his love of the outdoor life.

After the War, he married my mother and worked in Plymouth for the Admiralty Works Department.

In 1905, the year of massive expansion for the British railways in the Argentine, he decided to go out there and try his luck as a railway surveyor.

Sidney worked in the Argentine until his retirement in 1960 when he and my mother returned to the UK.

The following account was handwritten by him. Sadly some of his papers were burned and so there are some gaps in the narrative. Thanks are due to Tricia Wales and Sylvia Lodge who typed these memoirs.

I hope these papers will be of interest to anyone involved in researching the Argentine Railways.

E Jill Dudbridge

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updated: 29 January 2014