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LESLIE
DELBRIDGE
Born:
Parracombe,
Devon, 1915
Lived:
Sandyway,
Twitchen, South Molton, Simonsbath, Timberscombe
Recording made: 2001
Length of recording: 3 hrs 25 mins
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Leslie Delbridge was brought up at Sandyway. The house was damp, the carpet a piece of sacking, and the veneer peeled off his mother's piano. He used to run the 3½ miles to Twitchen school, in spite of having had rheumatic fever. He loved rabbiting and spent hours in the river groping trout. His father was an alcoholic.
He was electronically minded from an early age and a self-taught engineer. He wanted to fly Spitfires in the war but failed the medical so did contracting work for the 'War Ag', the county War Agricultural Executive Committee. Then he set up his own agricultural engineering business in Timberscombe quarry, often working until 2am to finish a job. He never sold anyone a new bit of machinery without stripping it down first to see how it worked. He has sharpened 24,000 sheep shearing blades in a year in the past, he says, but now it's only a few thousand.
postscript - Leslie Delbridge died in September 2001