2015-10-16
1385
My Great Aunt's name is Mary Grieve. She is my grandmother's aunt. I do not know her very well having always lived a long way away, but she has always been a woman I have respected for many different reasons.
She is now over eighty years old and was born in Scotland in 1912. She had one brother called Tom. Her family was wealthy for those times and luckily for Mary, her father believed in educating both his children. He did not send her to one of the typical schools for daughters of the rich where they only learnt skills preparing them for marriage. She was obviously intelligent and when she left school she went to Oxford University.
In the 1930's there were very few women at University. However
Mary is not a quiet, submissive woman, in fact she has always been very
determined and prepared to be different. At this time it was assumed
that woman of her class would spend a few years enjoying her freedom
, and then settle down and get married. Mary did not do this.
After graduating from the university, she got a job in journalism. Newspapers were increasingly popular and to sell them to a wider audience some papers realised that appealing to women was important. She not only worked for newspapers but also wrote articles and books later in her life.
After the Second World War, she got a job with one of the new women's magazines that were to become more and more popular. After many years of hard work and struggling in a male dominated profession she eventually reached the top and became the editor of the magazine.
Mary never married as her work was very important to her and a job and marriage did not mix in Britain in the 1950's.
She is now old in years and confined to a wheelchair. However she is still full of enthusiasm about life. Her personal courage, her enthusiasm and interest in life, as well as the example she has set for all women working in our still male dominated society, makes Mary a woman I feel privileged to have known.
Test № 8
I. Определите, верны (True) или неверны (False) следующие утверждения.
1. The story was written in the 1980s.
2. Mary got an education typical of the women of her class.
3. Mary stayed in her profession all her life.
4. There have always been more male magazine-editors in Britain than female.
