Example sentences of "[pers pn] had been a [noun] " in BNC.
Next page| No | Sentence |
|---|---|
| 1 | I just wish I had been a man , that 's all . |
| 2 | 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 . |
| 3 | I explained that I had not entered at the right time because I had been a hostage in Iraq . |
| 4 | And I knew I had been a child when I first came to live with him . |
| 5 | He had been curled up there , dead in his basket , since I had been a child in a velvet-collared coat . |
| 6 | I think it was his fourth , but as I had been a child during this proliferation of fiancées I was n't certain . |
| 7 | 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 . |
| 8 | 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 . |
| 9 | 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 . |
| 10 | I had been a vessel of pure water and I had been spilled . |
| 11 | 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 . |
| 12 | 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 ’ . |
| 13 | So I had been a visitor , and an occasional attender at the X-ray Department , but all that was spread over many years . |
| 14 | 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 . |
| 15 | Theirs had been a friendship she 'd trusted and valued . |
| 16 | Though Maggie was eighteen , tall and attractive , she was still as much in awe of Moran as when she had been a child . |
| 17 | ‘ The girl had advanced syphilis ; she had been a child prostitute . ’ |
| 18 | When she had been a child , those holidays had seemed magical , a time when everyday concerns were put in perspective by the rhythm of village life . |
| 19 | Before papa died she had been a child , spoiled and cosseted and it was a pity she had not grown up a bit more quickly . |
| 20 | He cut another slice and then he leaned across and buttered it for her , as if she had been a child . |
| 21 | And Miss Watson , of course , really was her better , for she had been a headmistress before this , and had taught in town schools , so large and magnificent that naturally she was much wiser and more experienced . |
| 22 | She clung to the picture of Mrs Rundle at home , for she had been a part of her home and the children had moored for a short while in the black harbour of her lap . |
| 23 | For the first time she could sense what it must be like to possess the surgeon 's power almost of life and death , the satisfaction of knowing your actions had helped to save a life or bring a new one into the world , and she had been a part , albeit a small one , of the drama . |
| 24 | She had worked with him once before , when she had been a Detective Sergeant . |
| 25 | She had been a childhood friend of William Egan and though no one could truly mourn such a man of violence , still she had her loyalties , and he was a man who had known how to trade on them . |
| 26 | She had been a pirate , a mutant , a murdered whore , Jack the Ripper . |
| 27 | Yet once she had been a favourite with the below-stairs staff . |
| 28 | We learn from a visit Emilia made to Simon Forman [ q.v. ] , astrologer , in 1597 , that she had been a favourite at the court of Elizabeth , had become mistress of Henry Carey , first Baron Hunsdon [ q.v. ] , and had been ‘ maintained in great pomp ’ until 1592 , when , becoming pregnant , she was married to Captain Alphonso Lanier , of the other leading family of court musicians , the Laniers , who came to London from Rouen in 1561 . |
| 29 | She knew that she had been a success and that Ludo was proud of her . |
| 30 | From the end of the fifteenth century she had been a factor in European diplomacy . |