Example sentences of "he [vb past] been a [adj] [noun] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | Spending even this short amount of time with him had been a big mistake . |
| 2 | He wanted to blurt out that she looked beautiful in blue , that he 'd like to kill the man who 'd been in her flat the previous evening , that he hoped her date with him had been a miserable failure , that he had hardly slept a wink all night , beside himself with jealousy . |
| 3 | Her feelings for him had been a pallid thing beside what she now felt for Fen . |
| 4 | He 'd been a Labour Party member too . |
| 5 | When she 'd first qualified in forensic medicine he 'd been a young sergeant . |
| 6 | Given that he had half frightened her to death to begin with , he 'd been a gentle lover too , she recalled , a tender smile playing around her mouth . |
| 7 | He 'd been a uniformed inspector with the Soho Unit for nearly three years , and was probably due for a move ; no sign of it yet , but there was most likely a memo waiting deep in the machinery , easing its way out at the speed of a splinter . |
| 8 | She had loved him while hating him , had loved him when he 'd been a perfect swine . |
| 9 | Strong hints about his IRA sympathies , as if everyone did n't know he 'd been a self-proclaimed Sinn Feinner since he was a youngster . |
| 10 | He 'd been a hard man to work for , but he taught Billy everything he knew about that garden and how to take care of it . |
| 11 | He was n't getting any younger , after all , and he 'd been a hard worker all his life . |
| 12 | He 'd been a social worker , then a deputy director of social services — he 'd been fired after the famous ‘ babyswap ’ scandal , but that was how he came to be taken up by FAMILY . |
| 13 | He had n't looked after her properly , he 'd been a bad father . |
| 14 | He spoke very warmly of his parents , but I felt that he 'd been a lonely child . |
| 15 | As to his feelings for Madeleine , nurtured since he 'd been a little boy , even were they to be revived , it seemed unlikely Madeleine would respond to him . |
| 16 | But from the moment she 'd come downstairs he 'd been a different man . |
| 17 | Really sad case , that , because he 'd been a fine man . |
| 18 | He 'd been a pharmaceutical salesman , mad keen on amateur dramatics . |
| 19 | If he 'd been an ordinary man , there would n't have been any problem . ’ |
| 20 | And er of course he went in , he was real regimental , again he 'd been an old soldier . |
| 21 | He had been a young man when she had met him back in 1898 . |
| 22 | He had been a young man , quite personable until someone slashed his throat . |
| 23 | At that time he had been a practising Catholic for two or three months . |
| 24 | Shaw spent most of his time on organization and records ; he was rarely involved directly in inquiries but he had been a first-class man on the ground . |
| 25 | Little wonder Roy Hattersley has now taken to the pages of the London Evening Standard , complaining that the glitz and the glamour hid the message — as though , somehow , he had been a disinterested spectator in the affair . |
| 26 | I had a letter about him from the Amalgamated Society of Joiners and Carpenters , of which he had been a prominent member . |
| 27 | Dickey had rebelled against his black clothes , until he was told that it would be naughty to mamma not to put them on , when he at once submitted ; and now , though he had heard Nanny say that mamma was in heaven , he had a vague notion that she would come home again tomorrow , and say that he had been a good boy and let him empty her workbox . ’ |
| 28 | He had been a good nome in his way , they said . |
| 29 | He had been a good friend to her and when she walked out on her parents she had made straight for the bar , looking for him . |
| 30 | He claimed that he had been a valued ally of the US government but that President Bush had pursued a vendetta against him because he , Noriega , had refused to participate in efforts to overthrow the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua . |