Example sentences of "he [verb] been a [adj] " in BNC.
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| 31 | When she 'd first qualified in forensic medicine he 'd been a young sergeant . |
| 32 | Given that he had half frightened her to death to begin with , he 'd been a gentle lover too , she recalled , a tender smile playing around her mouth . |
| 33 | He 'd been a uniformed inspector with the Soho Unit for nearly three years , and was probably due for a move ; no sign of it yet , but there was most likely a memo waiting deep in the machinery , easing its way out at the speed of a splinter . |
| 34 | He 'd been a successful amateur boxer before he joined Plummer 's organisation . |
| 35 | She had loved him while hating him , had loved him when he 'd been a perfect swine . |
| 36 | Strong hints about his IRA sympathies , as if everyone did n't know he 'd been a self-proclaimed Sinn Feinner since he was a youngster . |
| 37 | He 'd been a hard man to work for , but he taught Billy everything he knew about that garden and how to take care of it . |
| 38 | He was n't getting any younger , after all , and he 'd been a hard worker all his life . |
| 39 | He 'd been a social worker , then a deputy director of social services — he 'd been fired after the famous ‘ babyswap ’ scandal , but that was how he came to be taken up by FAMILY . |
| 40 | He had n't looked after her properly , he 'd been a bad father . |
| 41 | He spoke very warmly of his parents , but I felt that he 'd been a lonely child . |
| 42 | As to his feelings for Madeleine , nurtured since he 'd been a little boy , even were they to be revived , it seemed unlikely Madeleine would respond to him . |
| 43 | If he 'd been a Sikh it might have been different . |
| 44 | But from the moment she 'd come downstairs he 'd been a different man . |
| 45 | Really sad case , that , because he 'd been a fine man . |
| 46 | He 'd been a pharmaceutical salesman , mad keen on amateur dramatics . |
| 47 | He had been a young man when she had met him back in 1898 . |
| 48 | If he had been a young , attractive gentleman , I would have been too shy to offer help , but as he was not handsome , and even quite rough , I felt I wanted to help him . |
| 49 | He had been a young man , quite personable until someone slashed his throat . |
| 50 | At that time he had been a practising Catholic for two or three months . |
| 51 | Shaw spent most of his time on organization and records ; he was rarely involved directly in inquiries but he had been a first-class man on the ground . |
| 52 | Although he had been a sobering and restricting influence in a Germanic way upon the Queen , she took to wearing black immediately after his death and , in a sense , appeared never to cease mourning for him until the day she died . |
| 53 | Little wonder Roy Hattersley has now taken to the pages of the London Evening Standard , complaining that the glitz and the glamour hid the message — as though , somehow , he had been a disinterested spectator in the affair . |
| 54 | I had a letter about him from the Amalgamated Society of Joiners and Carpenters , of which he had been a prominent member . |
| 55 | Dickey had rebelled against his black clothes , until he was told that it would be naughty to mamma not to put them on , when he at once submitted ; and now , though he had heard Nanny say that mamma was in heaven , he had a vague notion that she would come home again tomorrow , and say that he had been a good boy and let him empty her workbox . ’ |
| 56 | He had been a good friend to her and when she walked out on her parents she had made straight for the bar , looking for him . |
| 57 | He had been a good nome in his way , they said . |
| 58 | He claimed that he had been a valued ally of the US government but that President Bush had pursued a vendetta against him because he , Noriega , had refused to participate in efforts to overthrow the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua . |
| 59 | He had been a successful prize fighter at the time and had the good sense to buy the Blue Boar from the proceeds of the noble art . |
| 60 | He had been a successful stage actor in high school and college , a pioneer in the young radio business , a journeyman screen performer , a television personality , a speechmaker to audiences of all description , author of a syndicated newspaper column . ’ |