Example sentences of "had [be] [v-ing] [prep] [adj] [noun] " in BNC.

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1 I am convinced that stuff had been accumulating for many years in this cellar and that Ernest Griffiths had no idea what was in there .
2 This change was marked by the arrival on 1 June of Air Commodore Hugh Pughe Lloyd , M.C. , D.F.C. , to take over as A.O.C. from A.V.M. Maynard , A.F.C. Newly-promoted from the rank of Group Captain , Lloyd had been serving as Senior Air Staff Officer with No.2 Group of Bomber Command .
3 The US and North Korean governments had been communicating for several years at a low level through the US embassy in Beijing .
4 Eventually an old gentleman who had been listening with much amusement to their discussion said that what mattered was not whether the earthworm has an immortal soul but whether it has a purpose .
5 Alexei had been listening for other footsteps coming along the bridge .
6 I think he had been listening to some people in the dale who had missed out on the shoot and the money that went with it , and were critical , or pretended to be critical , of people who worked for Sir Emmanuel and the other toffs — maybe a bit left wing , although Stanley was n't a person who took any interest in politics .
7 A report to the meeting said services to the region had been deteriorating for several years , with fewer trains running at less flexible times .
8 A report to the meeting said services to the region had been deteriorating for several years , with fewer trains at less flexible times .
9 Indeed , I recall being present at a formal state banquet in Malawi when the Life President , His Excellency the very elderly Dr Hastings Banda , had been speaking for 45 minutes proposing the toast and had still only reached 1947 .
10 Film shown on Algerian television that same evening recorded that he had been speaking for some minutes .
11 Both countries had been speaking for some time of their desire to improve relations , without making much progress .
12 If you read a few er , verses , a chapter or so earlier on , he had been speaking to one man to a er er a high official from Ethiopia , and he had been sharing with him from Isaiah chapter fifty three , the message of Jesus Christ .
13 The advice was given after Jo had been speaking to both children and their parents ( an audience that included 12 year old Romy Hutchins — a participant in the Challenge — and her father Paul , the former British Davis Cup captain and national team manager ) , in a unique question and answer session which preceded an on court clinic for the 20 or so participating juniors .
14 One student looking for employment had finished his grant entitlement in the first quarter of 1984 , and had been job-seeking for six months ( Table 7.2 ) .
15 To judge by the clutter of bottles , glasses , and over-filled ashtrays , and the brooding , weary faces , they had been debating for many hours .
16 Many had been decomposing for several weeks .
17 The conversation had been unsettling in other ways .
18 It seemed incredible to Tug that only five minutes before he had been calling her Ma and they had been grinning at each other .
19 Eve had n't known that Birdie Mac who ran the sweet shop had a man from Ballylee who had been calling for fifteen years , but she would n't leave her old mother and the man from Ballylee would n't come to Knockglen .
20 This was reportedly a concession which US oil companies had been seeking for some time .
21 By the time he and Norman strode out to try to win the 1986 British Open , Bender had been caddying for eighteen years , having picked up his first serious bag when he was 18 years old .
22 These solutions , which involved old technology , simply applied to the ocean freighter what railroads and truckers had been using for 30 years .
23 James Ousley , chief executive officer of the Control Data Systems Inc spin-out , says its former parent , Control Data Corp — now divided into two separate companies ( UX No 387 ) — had been looking for additional capital for a number of years , but was not able to tempt any investors to bankroll an organisation with interests as diverse as proprietary mainframes , Unix , military and government software and services and a lottery business .
24 For the first time she recognized that secretly she had been looking for some way out for herself and Midnight .
25 The City and the Confederation of British Industry had been looking for some indication of earlier participation in the exchange rate mechanism of the EMS .
26 He had exactly eight minutes to hear a report back from business leaders who had been looking at inner-city schools .
27 She had that envelope out again , the one that his Dad had been looking at last night .
28 The group had been meeting for two years , and it was mainly a consciousness-raising group , although , with only about twenty groups in London as a whole , some of them , the ‘ housewives ’ , the women who worked part-time were also able to help run the voluntary rota in the central London office , the Women 's Liberation Workshop .
29 The phone had been ringing for some time .
30 I tried to look pleased when she told me that Prentice had been ringing at half-hourly intervals since mid-afternoon and had left a multiple-choice list of numbers where I could get him that evening .
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