The Tailor Family

Read the text and decide which of these ideas are applicable to the text.

• Children are born to be happy.

• It’s not easy to raise children.

• Children bring only worries to their parents.

• “The childhood shows the man,

As morning shows the day.” (J. Milton)

Carol and Bill are very happily married but like any couple they have had plenty of worries over the children as they were growing up. Sarah, their elder daughter, was short-sighted and very shy. For a time Carol took her regularly to an eye-clinic and eventually Sarah had an operation which did not help much. Wearing glasses seemed to increase her shyness, and occasionally she cried at night because she felt lonely at school. Slowly, over the years, she grew out of her shyness, at least when she was in familiar situations.

She worked hard and got quite good marks for her lessons; she had also inherited her father’s musical gifts and learnt to play the flute, so she was able to join first the school orchestra and later a west London youth orchestra.

Carol worried how far Sarah would be able to cope with the loud self-conscious world of the seventies with teenagers running wild and much more open sex advertising than in her youth. But somehow it didn’t affect Sarah.

For a time in her early teens she joined the Girl Guides. The Guides and Scouts are the largest youth organizations in Britain. But one day she woke up and thought, “I’ve grown out of the Guides” and never went to another meeting.

In her last years at school she thought about applying to study music at the Royal College of Music, but she decided that she was not good enough to become a professional player, so, since she had good marks for geography in the difficult A-level exam, she applied to read geography at a provincial university. To her own surprise she was quickly told that she had been awarded a place and in September 1994 she became a university student.

Peter, their elder son, was a cheerful boy, energetic and lazy by turns. From babyhood he tended to be too fat, and since he was always hungry he used to fill himself with chips, cakes, sweets, Coca-Cola and other fattening foods. Carol had daily battles to keep his weight down, for she knew how unhealthy over-weight people could become. She insisted on his eating fruit, not sweets, but he bought sweets with his pocket money anyway.

When he was twelve he decided that his pocket money was not sufficient for his needs. So he helped a neighbour build a garage and earned a few pounds for his labour, and then, when he was thirteen he took on a newspaper round. He got up at 6 a.m. every morning, cycled to the newsagent’s where they were sorting out papers, took his own heavy bundles and delivered them to the houses on his route. Then he cycled home, ate his breakfast, rushed through the last of his homework and cycled to school. For delivering newspapers six days a week he received four times as much as his weekly pocket money. His parents made him put half the earnings in a saving bank; with the other half he bought rock records.

He was still overweight and the doctor insisted that he should exercise, so he began swimming at the local pool. His parents were delighted with his sporting enthusiasm but suddenly found themselves worried because they were never quite sure where he was or whom he was with. He started getting bad marks at school, and Bill, his dad, said that unless they improved he would forbid Peter to go swimming. Peter said, “I thought you were glad about my swimming. Now you want to stop me enjoying myself healthily!” Carol suddenly noticed that he had grown into a large young adult.

Make up all types of questions to the underlined sentences.

Which of these adjectives best describe the children:

Sarah: unhappy, self-contained, adaptable, secretive, strong-willed, shy.

Peter: hard-working, independent, weak-willed, resourceful, stubborn, spoilt.

Say what you remember about Sarah using the following prompts.

Model: Carol had plenty of worries over her daughter because she was too shy.

plenty of worries (over)

short-sighted

to increase shyness

to feel lonely

to grow out of

to get quite good marks

to inherit

to join the school orchestra

to cope with

not to affect

to think about applying

to become a professional player

to be awarded a place

Make up a list of helpful prompts to speak about Peter.

Express your opinion:

What do you think of the Tailors? Do you think the children are going to be well-prepared for hardships of life? Give your reasons.

Imagine you are an interviewer. Ask Carol about her family.

Retell the following texts and put questions to each of them on the problems raised by the authors.

1.

My father and mother were married very young, and the picture we had of their wedding shows that they wee a fine-looking couple. Mother was a Manchester woman. Father was born in Lancashire.

He and my mother were deeply in love. They fought and quarreled, they were bitterly jealous of each other. Once or twice they parted, but they always came together again. The last of these reunions resulted in me, and after my birth they never separated again.

I was the third of six children: four girls and two boys.

Looking back on my very early childhood it seems to me as if I was always tired and hungry.

Often enough we got no sleep at nights because of father and mother fighting – no wonder we were tired. If my father was drunk sometimes he wouldn’t let us into the house, so that we had to stay out all night. (J. Walsh)

2.

One day, when Kezia [kza] was kept indoors with a cold, her grandmother told her that her father’s birthday was next week, and suggested she should make him a pin-cushion for a present out of a beautiful piece of yellow silk. Labouriously the little girl stitched three sides. But what to fill it with? On the bed-table in mother’s bedroom she discovered a great many sheets of fine paper, gathered them up and stuffed the case, then sewed up the fourth side.

That night there was a hue and cry over the house. Father’s great speech for the Port Authority had been lost. Rooms were searched thoroughly, servants questioned. Finally mother came into the nursery. “Kezia, I suppose you didn’t see some papers on a table in our room?” “Oh, yes,” she said. “I tore them up for my surprise.” “What?” screamed mother. “Come straight down to the dining-room this instant.” And she was dragged down to where father was pacing to and fro, hands behind his back. “Well,” he said sharply. He stopped and stared at the girl. “Did you do that?” “N-n-no,” she whispered. “Mother, go up to the nursery and fetch down the damned thing – see that the child’s put to bed this instant.”

Crying too much to explain, she lay in the shadowed room watching the evening light sift through the blinds… Then father came into the room with a ruler in his hands. “Sit up,” he commanded, “and hold out your hands. You must be taught once and for all not to touch what doesn’t belong to you.” “But it was for your b-b-birthday.” Down came the ruler on her little, pink palms. Hours later, when the grandmother had wrapped her in a shawl, the child cuddled close to her soft body. “What did Jesus make fathers for?” she sobbed…

3.

I was born at Number Nineteen, Turnmill Street, London. My mother died when I was five years old. She died fifteen minutes after my sister Polly was born. As my father worked from morning till night, he had no time to look after Polly and me, so he married again soon. He married Mrs Burke, who was much younger and more good-looking than my mother. But I didn’t like my stepmother and she didn’t like me. So we began to hate each other; but she didn’t show her hatred when my father was at home. She beat me very often and she made me work very hard. From morning till night she found work for me to do. I looked after the baby. When she was awake I took her for a walk, carrying her in my arms, and she was very heavy. I cleaned the rooms, went shopping… There was always work for me to do.

One day a woman came to see my stepmother and they drank a lot of gin. All the money that my father had left for our dinner was spent. When the woman went home, my stepmother said to me in tears, “Oh, what shall I do, Jimmy, dear, what shall I do? Your father will come home soon, and there is no dinner for him. He will beat me cruelly! What shall I do, what shall I do?” I was sorry for her, she had tears in her eyes, and she called me “Jimmy, dear” for the first time. I asked her if I could help her and she said at once, “Oh, yes, you can help me! When your father comes home in the evening, Jimmy, dear, tell him that you lost the money he left for our dinner.” “How could I lose it?” I asked in surprise. “You can tell him that I sent you to buy some food. Suddenly a big boy ran against you and the money fell out of your hand and you couldn’t find it. That will be very easy to say, Jimmy, dear, please, say it to your father!” “But he’ll give me a good beating for it!” “Oh, no, he won’t! I shall not let him beat you, you may be sure! Here’s a penny for you, go and buy some sweets with it!”

So I went off and spent my penny on sweets. When I came back and opened the door, my father was at home waiting for me with his waist-belt in his hand. I wanted to run out of the room, but he caught me by the ear. “Stop a minute, young man!” he said. “What have you done with the money?” “I lost it, Father,” said I in fear and looked at my stepmother. “Oh, you lost it! Where did you lose it?” “In the street, Father. Ask Mrs Burke, she knows!” I told him what my stepmother had asked me to tell him. I was not much surprised that he didn’t believe my story. But my stepmother’s words surprised me very much. “Yes, he told me the same thing,” she said, “but he is a liar! He has spent your money on sweets. I can’t beat him, he is your child, but you can give him a good beating!” And she stood by while my father beat me with his belt till the blood showed. I hated my stepmother so much now that I wanted to see her dead. (J. Greenwood)