The modern servant -

The nanny, the cook, and the gardener

You are going to read about three modem servants. Divide into three groups.

Group A Read about the nanny.

Group В Read about the cook.

Group C Read about the gardener.

1. Read your article and answer the questions. Use your dictionary to help with new words. Discuss your answers with your group.

a) What and who influenced her/his choice of career?

b) What did her/his parents want her/him to do?

c) What was the parents' attitude to the choice of career at first?

d) Has the parents attitude changed? If so, why?

e) In what ways do the parents think that times have changed since they were young?

2.Read your article again.

Which of the following multi-word verbs can you find in your article? Underline them.

bring up (1) look after, educate (a child)

bring up (2) mention (in conversation)

carry on continue

drop out leave, not complete (a college course)

fall out quarrel and no longer be friends

get on with have a good relationship with

get over recover from (an illness, a shock)

give up stop (a job. a habit, e.g. smoking)

go through experience

grow up change from child to adult

look after take care of

make up (1) invent

make it up(2) be friends again after an argument

pick up learn unconsciously (e.g. a language)

put off postpone

be taken aback be surprised

take after resemble

turn out be in the end

take over take control of

The nanny

Amanda Peniston-Bird, 21, is the daughter of a judge and has just completed a two-year training course to be a nanny at the Norland Nursery Training College. She and her mother talk about her choice of career.

Amanda

My sister Charlotte was born when I was seven and my mother decided she needed a nanny to look after us. So we got Alison. She was very young, seventeen I think, and

wonderful. I adored her. She only worked part-time with us before she started her training at Norland College. She had to dress us in the morning and take me to school. After school she made us delicious teas and read us stories in bed. On Charlotte's birthday she organized fantastic party.

When Alison left, we had a trained nanny who lived with us and worked full-time. She was called Nanny Barnes by everyone, including my parents. She was older and quite traditional and wore a uniform. It was then that I realized that I wanted to be a nanny. I have always got on well with children. I have always enjoyed taken care of my sister and younger cousins. I told Mummy very firmly that I wanted to be a nanny when I grew up. At the time she laughed. I know that she and Daddy thought it was just a childish phase I was going through, but it wasn’t. They thought I would follow in my father’s footsteps and study law.

“My father wanted me to be a solicitor.”

The cook

Giles Mildmay, 24, has been a professional cook for three years. His father, George, owns a two-hundred-acre farm in Devon. The family have farmed in Devon for over three hundred years. Giles’ younger brother Tobias is studying farm management at Exeter University. Giles and his brother talk about his choice of career.

Giles

I think I’ve always been interested in food. My grandparents (on my mother’s side) lived in a huge old manor house in Lincolnshire and they had a wonderful cook. She made fantastic standard English food; her roast beef and Yorkshire pudding was out of this world. I used to love going down to the kitchen and watching her work, and I picked up a lot of cooking tips from her. I realized that I wanted to be a cook when I was 12. I went to a boarding school and when other boys chose to do sport, I chose cookery. By the time I was 15, I had taken over the cooking at home for my parents’ dinner parties, and I had started to make up my own recipes. I knew my parents would not approve of cooking as a career, so I decided to introduce them slowly to the idea. I told them that I wanted to do a cookery course for fun, and I went for a month to a hotel

in Torquay. I enjoyed it so much, I knew I couldn’t put off telling my parents any longer, so I brought the subject up one night over dinner. At first there was silence, and then my father asked me why. I explained that cooking was like painting a picture or writing a book. Every meal was an act of creation. I could see that my father was not convinced, but he didn’t get

angry, he just patted my on the shoulder and smiled. My mother kissed me. And now that I have opened my own restaurant, I think they are very proud of me. However, my grandfather (on my father’s side) is not so kind, he thinks I’m mad to have given up farming.

The gardener

Hugo Grantchester, 26, has been a gardener and a tree surgeon for four years. He went to Oxford University to study archaeology, but he dropped out after just one term. His father, Hector, is a surveyor and his mother, Geraldine, is an interior designer. Hugo and his mother talk about his choice of career.

Hugo

When I was 11 we moved to a large Tudor house in East Anglia which had three acres of garden. We had a gardener who lived in a little cottage at the end of our drive. I used to spend hours watching him work and talking to him. I think I picked up a lot about gardening without realizing it. because one summer, when I was still at school. I took a job at a garden centre and I knew all the names of the plants, and I could give people advice.

Then I went to university and it was a disaster. After a term I told my parents that I was going to give it up and go back to work in the garden centre. They were furious, we had a terrible row, and they didn't speak to me for months. But I knew it was a waste of time to carry on studying archaeology, and the moment I started gardening again, I knew I'd made the right decision. We enjoyed every moment or the last four years and my parents have learnt to accept what I do, not only because they can see how happy I am but also because a lot of my university friends have found it difficult to find good jobs or have been made redundant. Sometimes people are quite taken aback when they find out that their gardener when to university, but I think it makes them respect my opinion more when I'm helping them to plan their gardens.

Hugo's mother His father and I were so delighted when he went to Oxford, but when he gave it up so soon we were very, very angry. We thought manual labour was not the career for our only son. We fell out for months. Hector refused to allow Hugo into the house, and we all felt thoroughly miserable. But our daughter told us not to worry because Hugo would be a millionaire by the time he was forty. Anyway, we've made it up now we can see how happy he is, even though he hasn’t become a millionaire yet!

Times have changed and all kinds of people do all kinds of work, and I think the world's a better place for it!

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