Example sentences of "had [prep] [art] [adj] [noun sg] been " in BNC.

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1 There had for a long time been publicly expressed unease in the United Kingdom about the unsatisfactory training of people treating the diseases of animals , whether they were farriers in the sense of being shoeing-smiths acting as horse-doctors , or were medical practitioners — physicians , or more especially surgeons — who had , partly or completely , left human medicine for the less crowded and potentially more lucrative ( if less socially acceptable ) field of animal medicine .
2 Valerie Eliot was also his protector — as a secretary she had for a long time been organizing his daily life and guarding him from the world , and it was probably the calm assurance of her presence which first drew him towards her .
3 The Institute of Economic Affairs had for a long time been polemicising against the extension of state activity on the grounds that it restricted choice , led to dependency and reduced the motivation to work , and fostered economic inefficiency in comparison with ‘ private enterprise ’ .
4 Doubt was cast on Cameron 's results partly by the lack of control data he offered , and , later , after his death , his reputation for scientific integrity was irretrievably damaged by the revelation that much of his experimental work had for a long time been secretly supported by the CIA , including some rather insidious studies of the effects of covertly administered LSD on the behaviour of unsuspecting people .
5 Walker , who apart from the Prime Minister herself ( Margaret Thatcher ) and Sir Geoffrey Howe was the only remaining member of the Conservative Cabinet formed in 1979 ( and who had also been a member of Edward Heath 's Cabinet in 1970-74 ) , had for a considerable time been regarded as in many ways out of sympathy with certain aspects of Thatcher 's political philosophy .
6 The Yugoslavian authorities announced on Feb. 20 that Army units stationed in the province of Kosovo had for the first time been given specific orders to quell a renewed wave of unrest among ethnic Albanians in the province .
7 The lands to the north and east of a line joining these two houses had in the ninth century been conquered and to some degree settled by pagan Scandinavians , who had destroyed the existing monasteries and several of the bishoprics , and such evidence as there is suggests that the Christianity practised within them retained aspects upon which the stricter kind of churchman would have frowned .
8 But , even while visualizing entering the cupboard , she had at the same time been fully aware that she was in a non-threatening situation ( lying in her own bed ) and so , once again , the subconscious mind had no need to send out those panic signals .
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