Баранова, Starlight 9. Учебник. Module 6b

I do the washing-up and make my bed every day. I sometimes lay the table and dust the furniture. I never cook meals or do bookkeeping or stocktaking.

I think life would be very different depending on whether you were rich or poor. If you were rich, life would have been very easy but if you were poor, life would be hard.

1 D 4 D 7 D 10 C 13 A
2 C 5 A 8 В 11 В 14 В
3 C 6 A 9 A 12 D 15 A

sure of myself = confident
not loose = tight
really = truly
amenities = comforts
very happy = overjoyed
teacher = tutor
hint = clue
dirty = filthy interesting = engrossing
idea = taste
got stronger = intensified
woke up = rose

1 Now that the staff have finished their work, they can relax.
2 Cleaning the rooms took so long that I didn’t get time for a break.
3 Lord and Lady Finch eat upstairs whereas the staff eat in the kitchen.
4 A maid quit and as a result we had to work much harder.
5 Although it was raining, Lady Acton insisted on going horse riding.
6 Make sure the car is ready in case Lord Cawley needs it.

The family lived upstairs and the servants worked downstairs. The family members lived a life of leisure going horse riding and taking singing lessons. The servants worked very hard and had to follow orders. The housekeeper was in charge of all the maids and the butler was in charge of the footmen. The housekeeper did the orders, the bookkeeping and stocktaking. The footmen polished boots and silver and carried huge trays of dinner. The kitchen maids did the washing-up and the mopping.

Today I woke up and went horse riding after breakfast. Later I had a singing lesson with my tutor and I think I am really improving. For the rest of the day, I was quite bored. I read for a while and then I had dinner with my family and went to bed quite early.

Life in Edwardian England was very different to today. They had servants whereas today we don’t. These servants lived and worked in other people’s houses, but that doesn’t really happen today. Women were the property of their father or their husband and that’s not true today. Women didn’t have much freedom and weren’t allowed to speak out which is not the case nowadays. Today we have much busier lives than in Edwardian times and people are equal in society whether they are rich or poor.