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My Great Aunt's name is Mary Grieve. She is my grandmother's aunt. I do not know her very well having always lived a long way away, but she has always been a woman I have respected for many different reasons.

She is now over eighty years old and was born in Scotland in 1912. She had one brother called Tom. Her family was wealthy for those times and luckily for Mary, her father believed in educating both his children. He did not send her to one of the typical schools for daughters of the rich where they only learnt skills preparing them for marriage. She was obviously intelligent and when she left school she went to Oxford University.

In the 1930's there were very few women at University. However

Mary is not a quiet, submissive woman, in fact she has always been very

determined and prepared to be different. At this time it was assumed

that woman of her class would spend a few years enjoying her freedom

, and then settle down and get married. Mary did not do this.

After graduating from the university, she got a job in journalism. Newspapers were increasingly popular and to sell them to a wider audience some papers realised that appealing to women was important. She not only worked for newspapers but also wrote articles and books later in her life.

After the Second World War, she got a job with one of the new women's magazines that were to become more and more popular. After many years of hard work and struggling in a male dominated profession she eventually reached the top and became the editor of the magazine.

Mary never married as her work was very important to her and a job and marriage did not mix in Britain in the 1950's.

She is now old in years and confined to a wheelchair. However she is still full of enthusiasm about life. Her personal courage, her enthusiasm and interest in life, as well as the example she has set for all women working in our still male dominated society, makes Mary a woman I feel privileged to have known.

Test № 8

I. Определите, верны (True) или неверны (False) следующие утверждения.

1. The story was written in the 1980s.

2. Mary got an education typical of the women of her class.

3. Mary stayed in her profession all her life.

4. There have always been more male magazine-editors in Britain than female.

II. Ответьте на следующие вопросы.

1. Why doesn't the narrator know her Great Aunt very well?

2. What kind of job did Mary get after graduating from the university?

3. Why did Mary never marry?

4. What always impressed the narrator in her Great Aunt?

III. Исправьте предложения в соответствии с содержанием текста.

1. Women magazines began to be popular in Britain in the 1930s.

2. Mary is now old in years and has lost interest in life.

№9

Прочитайте текст два раза и выполните следующие задания.

The setting is every child's dream. A huge, rambling, 300-year-old house, warmed by log fires, overrun by pets, and set in acres of natural playground. And no school.

That is what makes the Kirkbride household so rare. James, 18, Tamara, 15, Tigger, 14, and Hoppy, 10, have spent the last four years doing what other children only enjoy at weekends and holidays.

They get up when they feel like it, breakfast at leisure, and spend the rest of the day doing what they want. They walk, swim, fish, paint, read, play musical instruments, cook or sit around and chat.

There has been no attempt at having any lessons since John and Melinda Kirkbride took their children out of the local school — James five years ago and the others a year later. Hoppy had been there only six days. «We did start with a sort of curriculum when we took James out», says John, 46, a large forceful man. «But we soon realised we were repeating the mistakes of the system.»

«From the beginning, we both felt that packing our children off to school was wrong», says Melinda, a German-bom former actress. «Seeing their unhappiness made us re-examine our own school years, and remember how destructive they were.» John, formerly a TV producer, began a teachers' training course in Norwich, «to see if I could reform from within.» He soon found he couldn't and, after completing the course and teaching for four months, he removed himself and his children, from the system.

If the personalities of the children were the only criteria, the experiment would be an undoubted success. They are intelligent, confident, capable and considerate. All, including the two boys, cook and sew. Chores are shared without arguments. Their friendliness to each other, and to the many guests who visit the house, is natural and unforced.

«Teach is a swear word in this house,» says John. «It destroys the

child's own natural talent and creativity. Now learning—that's a different

matter. All our children learn when and if they want to learn something.

They look it up in books or they go and ask someone who knows, they

. use their initiative — which is more than any school could teach them.»

Test № 9

I. Определите, верны (True) или неверны (False) следую щие утверждения. '

1. The Kirkbride household is typical of the east coast of Britain.

2. None of Melinda and John's children have ever attended school.

3. John and his wife do not accept the traditional school system.

4. The parents don't make any of their children learn anything.

II. Ответьте на следующие вопросы.