Example sentences of "[pron] had been the [adj] [noun sg] " in BNC.
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1 | I had been the first Chairman of Wells-Next-The-Sea , Town Council , but two or three years afterwards , we decided to turn , er , the old cinema , they wanted to turn the old cinema into a Dance Hall . |
2 | I began there as someone who was already a professor , I had been the first woman Pro-Vice-Chancellor in the country . |
3 | Arms control and related issues were high on the agenda and significant agreement was reached on the status of air-launched and sea-launched cruise missiles , which had been the major stumbling blocks in the way of a new strategic arms limitation treaty ( START ) . |
4 | The results were interpreted as giving a continued endorsement to the efforts of the non-party President Georgios Vassiliou to pursue UN-backed talks with the Turkish Cypriots — something which had been the key issue of the electoral campaigns . |
5 | but many of those who were ready to benefit from it could not read Latin , which had been the normal basis for scholarly interchange . |
6 | The years 1990 and 1991 had emerged as the warmest ever recorded , outstripping the 1980s , which had been the warmest decade to date . |
7 | Man-made fibres and plastic sheeting have long since replaced the porous cambric or fine cotton linen which had been the standard material for sails over seven decades . |
8 | The conference ( a triennial meeting scheduled between NAM summits ) took place in the context of the effective ending of the " Cold War " , the issue which had been the immediate stimulus for the original formation of the Non-aligned Movement in 1961 . |
9 | The dismantling of the Communist system , which had been the immediate priority of the new government elected in June 1990 [ see pp. 37542-43 ] , was followed by the framing of a new constitution regulating the relationship between the federal government and the two constituent republics . |
10 | Kermode sees this change — which is at the heart of what I am writing about — as having radical implications for letters , comparable to such things as the advent , first of printing and then of cheap paper ; the bourgeoisie 's greater leisure for private reading ; and the abandonment by circulating libraries of the three-volume novel , which had been the favoured vehicle for fiction during much of the nineteenth century : Kermode exaggerates a little , I think ; nothing in the establishment of university English is as important as the innovations in culture and technology which established the book in its modern form . |
11 | Later , as they strolled on neat walkways and over pretty Oriental stone bridges , Luke 's mood grew more relaxed , so Maria reintroduced the subject which had been the initial cause of their earlier conflict . |
12 | Manufacturing , which had been the leading sector in 1989 , was expected to be less significant in 1990 , with a world fall in demand for computer hardware . |
13 | The area to the south of Saville Street which had been the commercial centre for the port was already in a state of decay with banks , etc. moving north towards residential areas . |
14 | But wherever they had gone , she had been the perfect companion : enthusiastic , amusing and loving . |
15 | She wanted him to plead with her to stay with him , forever , as he 'd done once before , but this time she would accept and tell him how wrong she had been the first time . |
16 | She had been the only passenger to alight from the two carriage train which she could still hear dimly in the distance , chuffing its way over the Severn Bridge on its way to Lydney . |
17 | For a start she had been the only woman , and her colleagues had found it strange that she should be working with them . |
18 | Aleksandra Biryukova retired as a Deputy Chair of the USSR Council of Ministers ( in which she had been the only woman out of 69 members ) and as Chair of the Bureau for Social Development on Sept. 17 . |
19 | She was highly delighted , especially when she learned that she had been the only woman called for interview ; she had been certain that the job would go to one of the male applicants . |
20 | He had once been the leader and she had been the unquestioning follower , but all that had changed now . |
21 | Philippa was ousted by her uncle , William IV 's younger brother , but in the eyes of her descendants she had been the rightful Countess of Toulouse and periodically they went to war to re-assert that claim . |
22 | Was it not his father who had been the prime agent in advocating the educational route to success ? |
23 | The ruling Justicialist Party ( PJ — the Peronists ) retained the governorships of the provinces of La Rioja , Jujuy and Santiago del Estero , but lost to small local conservative parties in ( i ) Chaco — won by José Ruiz Palacios , a former colonel who served as an Under-Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior under the previous military dictatorship ; ( ii ) Salta — won by former navy captain Roberto Ulloa , who had been the provincial governor under the military regime ; and ( iii ) Corrientes . |
24 | As they went their separate ways , critics gave Martin , who had been the straight man of the team , little chance of finding the kind of success they predicted for Lewis . |
25 | Julio Strassera , who had been the chief prosecutor at the original " dirty war " trials in 1985 , announced that he was resigning in protest as Argentina 's representative to the UN Human Rights Commission . |
26 | Jospin himself , hitherto a Minister of State , left the cabinet , as did five Ministers ( four PS members and Brice Lalonde who had been the sole representative of Génération Ecologie ) . |
27 | This appeal is by the local authority , with the leave of the judge , from an order made by Sir Gervase Sheldon , sitting as an additional judge of the High Court , on 20 December 1991 , whereby he granted to the foster mother , who had been the foster mother of four children in the care of the local authority , leave to apply for a residence order in respect of those children . |
28 | In the Academy , he was a pupil of John Graham who had been the famous artist David Wilkie 's teacher . |
29 | It was Canning , after all , who had been the first virtuoso of diplomacy by public opinion . |
30 | Despite them the withdrawal went smoothly , with the Colonel , who had been the first man ashore , the last man off , just behind Charley Head , who , as signals officer , had kept up a stream of messages , 40 an hour at one point , that included reassuring but unproven ‘ going well ’ reports . |