Example sentences of "[pers pn] had been [art] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
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| 1 | In his last memoirs , written in his second exile , he wrote that before 1953 , " I had been no more than a hereditary sovereign , but now I had truly been elected by the people . |
| 2 | She told us : ‘ The first time I saw this lady from the Foundation for Global Unity in Canterbury , she told me I had been a young boy in one of the Balkan countries , where slaves were being used to cut down all the trees . |
| 3 | So I had been a visitor , and an occasional attender at the X-ray Department , but all that was spread over many years . |
| 4 | I explained that I had not entered at the right time because I had been a hostage in Iraq . |
| 5 | With regard to point ( c ) , I had been a teensy bit lazy in the last few maths lessons , not having worked on the set tasks with much enthusiasm at all . |
| 6 | I just wish I had been a man , that 's all . |
| 7 | I had been a thing of firm , clear outlines ; now I seemed to splay out in all directions and to have assumed a shape , thanks to undue accretions of flesh , which bore no relation to the person I believed to exist within it . |
| 8 | Was this the point at which to say that I had been a professional actress for over thirty years and was well aware of the mechanics etc ? |
| 9 | I knew later I had been a damn fool but … |
| 10 | Although Fair Isle is officially part of Shetland , and I had been a keen birdwatcher since I was a boy , I had never had the opportunity to visit the island until I had started to work for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds . |
| 11 | Mr Singh , a Kenyan Asian , confessed to me , after I had been a friend of the family for several years , that he was neither fluent in Swahili , the language of his education up to 13 , nor in Punjabi , his mother tongue . |
| 12 | I had been a dutiful daughter , an elegant accessory , a nurse and business manager in the service of three men . |
| 13 | And I knew I had been a child when I first came to live with him . |
| 14 | In any case , it is too difficult for me , and I wish I had been a movie comedian or something of the sort and had never heard of physics ’ . |
| 15 | In the early days I had been a bit disappointed that the NUJ had n't immediately leapt to John 's defence , but ever since I had first been to see the General Secretary , Harry Conroy , and his assistant , Tom Nash , the union had done what it could to respond to what was asked of them . |
| 16 | I began to think she would be worthy in time of being my mistress , which till now I had been a little scrupulous about . |
| 17 | I had been a gang leader in Harehills — first administering the lives of younger children , then by brass , bossiness and imagination extending judgement even over older boys . |
| 18 | He had been curled up there , dead in his basket , since I had been a child in a velvet-collared coat . |
| 19 | I think it was his fourth , but as I had been a child during this proliferation of fiancées I was n't certain . |
| 20 | I had been a vessel of pure water and I had been spilled . |
| 21 | I understood , you see , because I had been a provincial myself . |
| 22 | If I had been a marquis , I felt , I would still have been in bed or perhaps just parting the curtains and peering out to see what kind of day it was But Lord Hulton worked all the time , just about as hard as any of his men . |
| 23 | In the middle of many clashes and difficulties were the men whom I had met , and to whom , if I had been a true friend , I might have given something of the faith and spirit which could have helped them find a better way for their people . |
| 24 | I have sometimes gone into it when the King was absent from Delhi and once pretty far I thought , for the purpose of giving my advice in the case of a great lady so ill that she could not be moved to the outward gate ; but a Kachemire shawl covered my head , hanging like a large scarfe down to my feet , and a eunuch led me by the hand , as if I had been a blind man . |
| 25 | Water came from the taps and sat in an unnerving basin shape : the blue plastic failed to dematerialise from the world where I had been a grateful and temporary guest since the moment five years ago when I had vouchsafed in the sight of the God of men Ido . |
| 26 | Last time I had been a fool enough to close French doors and knew they were there only frantic moments later , when I saw blood spatter my wrists and hands , like a fly buzzing , like a bird beating against the see-through reality . |
| 27 | The nurse said I had been a very good patient . |
| 28 | By the time I left his office , I felt as if I had been an established outside-left for years , ’ Bastin later recalled . |
| 29 | My personal life had been a disaster : I had had a lousy relationship with my mother ; been frightened of my father ; from time to time my marriage had been close to the rocks and I had been an uncaring father . |
| 30 | ’ So this particular sergeant who had been a PC when I had been an acting sergeant , sat alongside me . |