Example sentences of "had been able " in BNC.
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| 1 | ‘ The truest Plagiarism is the truest Poetry ’ , claims Thomas Chatterton , warming to Ackroyd 's theme , and perhaps overdoing it , along with Ackroyd 's Wilde , who had been able to believe that ‘ almost all the methods and conventions of art and life found their highest expression in parody ’ . |
| 2 | If the Queen 's telescope had been able to reach into Patrick 's classroom , there would have been a surprise in store for her — but not for Patrick , who at least affects to believe the story that Orwellian minders are peering at the punters from the screens of the punters ' television sets . |
| 3 | She brought with her in the car anything of mine that she had been able to find in the house ( plus a few things that just reminded her of me ) and they were all dumped in my front hall . |
| 4 | A lot of these deaths might have been prevented if people had been able to get out in time . |
| 5 | Here , on a small island of some 2,000 or so souls , pocketed by the encircling hills around its charming port , was the ideal place for him to gather his thoughts and address himself more seriously than he had been able to do in busy Montreal , grim London or frenetic New York . |
| 6 | Under the old regional arrangements , the entrepreneurial independent tour organisers had been able to profit handsomely ; especially those who catered for the insatiable demand by railway enthusiasts to travel ‘ new ’ lines behind favourite or unusual diesel types . |
| 7 | But being in Durban , far from the turmoil over the book 's publication , he had been able to read it and ponder . |
| 8 | After attending a local nursery school , some children had been able to write their own names . |
| 9 | ‘ If I had been able to run my own theatre , like Alan Ayckbourn or Neil Simon , I would definitely have directed all my plays myself . |
| 10 | I had been able to have a couple of hours ' sleep here and there since the landings and , most important , I was able to move around more or less as I wanted to . |
| 11 | In 1917 a mere fifty-three households had been able to sell off excess grain . |
| 12 | Due to wartime conditions the peasantry got the same amount of agricultural machinery over the years 1915–21 that they had been able to buy in a single year prior to the World War . |
| 13 | With the consequence of the Falklands still exerting its potency , the economy showing distinct signs of recuperation , and inflation falling fast , Mrs Thatcher had been able to call an early election . |
| 14 | The poet who against Romantic diction forged a new contemporary language for a poetry which had been able to deal with the modern city face to face , had , to a considerable extent , reinstated Romanticism through anthropology . |
| 15 | When Maggie had hugged Rachel as a child , her small arms stretching wide to reach round her bum , Maggie had been able to feel the solidness of her , the deep-grounded certainty that Rachel exuded . |
| 16 | By lunchtime Wexford and Burden had interviewed all those members of the darts club that had been present at Jack Pertwee 's stag party with the exception of Maurice Cullam , but none of them had been able to do more than confirm that Hatton had been aggressive , vain and malicious and that he had been carrying a great deal of money . |
| 17 | He had been able to teach her some of the ploys that actors use to control their breathing when they are nervous , and project their voices so they can be heard . |
| 18 | It was the first time since her death that he had been able to think of it with anything like acceptance . |
| 19 | Almost 100 new companies had been formed , and Schach had been able to secure over a million pounds in bank guarantees to finance not only such expensive disasters as Dreaming Lips , Love from a Stranger and The Marriage of Gorbal , but even films that were never made . |
| 20 | Only 120 of the 820 electors had been able to vote . |
| 21 | Yet they also said that they had managed to increase output without increasing the workforce and had been able to grow more effectively . |
| 22 | The Agriculture Minister , Mr John Gummer , and the Scottish Secretary , Mr Malcolm Rifkind , celebrated the small gains they had been able to negotiate , but admitted that the industry in Britain faced a tough time in the coming year . |
| 23 | If I had been able to see a copy of the local Communist party paper , I would have learned that I — with many others — had been unmasked as a conspirator and an enemy of the state . |
| 24 | Nor was he helped by being up against the mighty deeds of the West Indies in his first two series , and perhaps if he had been able to cut his teeth on something less difficult the story might have had a happier turn to it . |
| 25 | After Gower won the toss and put them in , West Indies had a good first day as Haynes made a patient 84 and Richardson his second successive century ; 269 for 2 at the close reflected the lack of life that Botham and Thomas had been able to extract from the pitch and the catches that had gone . |
| 26 | So far , with Worrell having turned down the chance , no one had been able to complain about the captaincy ; but by now Worrell had his degree , was very much available , and Alexander himself expected him to be made captain for the tour by England in 1959–60 . |
| 27 | It is perhaps for that reason that the pensions industry had been able to get away with such arrangements for so long . |
| 28 | He was a hard worker , but Jane marvelled at how he had been able to build up a business while remaining practically unintelligible . |
| 29 | He had exercised effective control of the labour force for ten years at the giant plant and had been able to bring the workers out on strike at the drop of a hat . |
| 30 | They were walking on to the long ridge they had been able to see from the cottage window . |