2.Talk about the person*s recollections of his childhood and his family.

Everyone has his own recollections especially about his childhood and family.

I’d like to talk about recollections of a person who had very difficult childhood.

He was the second child of a family of seven. His earliest recollection was that other children seemed to be better off than they were. One particular thing that he always remembered was that every Sunday morning his father brought him a comic for a half-penny plain and a panny-coloured.

His father was a painter and decorator. He could do almost everything: repair roofs, do a bit plastering but painting and paper-hanging were his main work.

He remembered that winters were the hardest times for his family because there was hardly any work.

His mother used to go out charring. Sometimes she used to bring home little treasures: a basin of dripping or a little bit of butter. But his mother hated charity because she hated accepting anything. They even had no unemployment money, anything they got was charity.

He also remembered his mother went down to the council to try and get more for them when they had only one pair of shoes and they all needed mending.

When they were extra hard up they only had one room or two rooms in somebody else’s house. They never had a house to themselves, because at that time not many people could afford a house to themselves.

3. Talk about the qualities a woman needed in a first half of 20th to make a career in a male-dominated profession in Britain («My Great Aunt»).

I’d like to start with the fact that in Britain in the 1950’s a job and marriage did not mix. Men were born for jobs and careers and women for marriage and children.

Fathers sent their daughters to school where the girls learnt the skills preparing them for marriage.

After that they were assumed to spend a few years enjoying their freedom and then settle down and get married.

Very few women were at Universities or were allowed to enter. Most of them were quiet and submissive and didn’t even think about working in a male dominated society.

But some of them were prepared to be different to make career. They were obviously intelligent, persistent and competent. They had personal courage, enthusiasm and interest in life. Only this women after many years of hard work and struggling in male dominated profession eventually reached the top. They made men realize that appealing to women was important.

I think it was the beginning of a small revolution in our world.

Now nothing is impossible and a woman can do anything she wants with her life.

4.Talk about modern writer and give life-story about his mother.

Laurie Lee was born in 1914. Educated locally he worked for several years as an office clerk before moving to London,where he worked as a builder`s labourer. Lee travelled in Europe and in 1937 joined International Brigades to fight in the Spanish Civil War. In the Second War he made documentary films for a General Post Office, and the Ministry of Information. It was during the period he published his first volumes of poems, the Sun, My Monument. He became famous for his autobiographical trilogy. Lee died in 1997/

Annie Light is a main character of the story “Mother”. She had a rather difficult destiny with a lot of disappointments and failures.

When Ann was about thirteen years old her mother was taken ill, so the girl had to leave school for good. There was probably no one less capable of bringing up 5 husky brothers than this scatter-brained, half grown girl.

And she did what she could. It characterizes her as a generous, tolerant and wise person. She was fully devoted to her family. That was great. Later, when the boys grew up, she spent several odd years in the village pub, helping her father to look after it.

Later she married a widower with two children. The marriage was unsuccesful, because her husband had left her with his children and some more on her own. But she managed to come with the difficulties.

And I look up to her for this. I think she had good qualities and was a person of strong character and I admire her for that. I agree that she had a chance to live a different life. She sacrificed herself and it was her bold decision.