Cambridge English · Learner e-book
What Britain is actually like, and how to talk about it
B1 Preliminary · CEFR B1 · 10 units · 100 minutes of audio
Ten units, one line, one stop at a time. Each stop is a piece of British life and a piece of the B1 Preliminary exam. Work through them in order — the language builds, and each unit assumes the one before it.
Every unit has the same eleven steps and takes about four hours. Grammar is the spine: the reading passage exists to make the unit's grammar visible, and the Grammar Clinic is the longest section in the unit for a reason. Listen first with the transcript closed, then again with it open. Do not stop the audio to look up words: the words you need are taught before you listen, and the rest are explained inside the programme.
The coloured buttons in each unit open tasks on the learning platform. Tick the box under each one when you finish it, and the bars at the top of the page and the top of each unit will fill up. Your teacher can see the same bars.
A note on the audio: the two voices are Tom, a retired London bus driver, and Nila, who works at a community radio station in east London. Both are Londoners, but they do not sound alike — Tom speaks the older, slower London of the bus garages, and Nila the quick London of a twenty-five-year-old. Listen for the difference. They present both levels of this series, so when you move up you keep the same companions and they simply speak faster.
| Journeys made in London in one year | billion journeys |
|---|---|
| Bus | 1.87 |
| Underground | 1.18 |
Learn these five words first. You will hear all of them in the story.
Predict: the story is called “The Cake on the Top Deck”. What do you think happens? Write one sentence before you listen.
Play: vocabulary warm-up→NILA(bright) Tom, you have told me bus stories since the first day we worked together.
TOM(dry) That is because I drove them for thirty-four years, and a driver sees everything.
NILAThen give us the best one you have got. Give us the story about the wedding cake.
TOM(warm, settling in) I started on the buses in 1981, on the number 38, when I was twenty-two years old. Before that I had never driven anything longer than my father's little grey van. Since then I have driven most of the routes in north London, but the 38 has always been mine.
NILA(amused) He says "mine", as though Transport for London had signed the road over to him.
TOMThey should have done. (beat) Now, this happened on a very hot Saturday in June 1994. I set off from the terminus at half past seven, with the sun already on the windscreen.
NILASaturdays must be quieter than the working week, surely, with no proper rush hour to deal with.
TOMQuieter at first, but by nine o'clock the bus was crowded and the top deck was packed like sardines.
NILAPacked like sardines. Unpack that one for anybody who has never met the phrase before.
TOMSardines are small fish, and they come in a flat tin, squeezed side by side with no room at all. That is a London bus on a warm Saturday morning, and no other phrase fits it properly.
TOMA young woman got on at Islington carrying a white box that was almost as wide as she was. She tapped in, thanked me twice, and carried the box up to the top deck, which was her mistake.
TOMI have seen umbrellas, laptops, a guitar and, on one memorable Tuesday, a set of false teeth. Lost property at Baker Street has seen everything a person can carry and then forget.
TOMShe got off near Piccadilly in a terrible hurry, and the box stayed exactly where she had put it. I found it at the terminus at the end of the trip, so I carried it downstairs and lifted the lid. Inside there was a wedding cake, three tiers high, with white icing and little silver flowers.
TOMI rang the depot straight away, and they told me to hand it in to lost property on the Monday. But a wedding cake is no use to anybody on a Monday, because somebody was marrying that afternoon. The whole thing came out of the blue, and I had about twenty minutes to make up my mind.
TOMThere was a bakery label on the box with an address written underneath it in blue biro. Saint Anne's church in Hackney, two o'clock. My mate Ray took the last two trips of my shift. I got a cab and I paid the fare myself, and that fare came to eleven pounds fifty. Eleven pounds fifty, in 1994, and it was worth every single penny of it.
TOMThe taxi pulled in outside Saint Anne's at ten to two, and I climbed out holding the box like a baby. A woman in a blue hat looked at me, then looked at the box, and then she screamed.
TOM(dry) With joy, Nila, let us be completely clear about that, because she was the bride's mother. Nobody had seen that cake since half past ten, and nobody had dared to tell the bride. Somebody took a photograph of me standing beside that cake in my London Transport uniform.
NILA(warm) Please tell me you have still got that photograph.
TOMIt has been on my kitchen wall since 1994, and my grandchildren are convinced that I am famous.
TOM(chuckling) I have told that story a hundred times and it still gets a laugh in the pub. The job has changed since then, mind you, because the buses stopped taking cash in 2014. Now everybody taps in with a card or a phone, and nobody stands there hunting for change. I miss the passengers, and I have never once missed a wet Monday morning in December.
NILA(softly) Did you ever hear anything from the young woman with the box?
TOMShe wrote two lines to the depot, and they pinned her letter up in the canteen. "Thank you to the driver who saved my sister's wedding." I have kept that letter ever since.
Something new about how a city moves — this is not the story you just heard. Read it once straight through. Then read it again and underline every example of present perfect and past simple: choosing between them you can find. There are at least twelve.
I have kept this blog since Year 8, and this is my hundredth post. Brace yourself: it is about buses. I have travelled to school on the number 73 for three years, and in that time I have learned a surprising amount. Last September I started Year 10 and moved permanently to the top deck. My mum says that is not an achievement. I disagree.
First, the money: I have never paid for a bus in my life, which sounds like a crime but is not one. Children between eleven and fifteen travel free on London buses and trams with a Zip Oyster photocard. I applied for mine in Year 7, and the photograph is genuinely terrible.
Second, the Hopper fare, which my dad discovered last year and has talked about ever since. Once you have paid for one bus, you can change onto other buses or trams free for a whole hour. Meanwhile I have been late eleven times this term. Eleven. I have counted.
Third, the map: a draughtsman called Harry Beck drew the famous Tube diagram in 1931, and London Transport published it in 1933. He threw the real geography away. People say the company paid him five guineas, which is about five pounds twenty-five. His design has survived for more than ninety years.
Fourth, my favourite fact: the Lost Property Office opened in the same year as the map, in 1933. It has gathered this city's forgotten things ever since. In October 2023 it moved to a bus garage in West Ham. It takes in more than 200,000 items a year, which is about 6,000 a week. I have left one water bottle, one PE kit and one recorder on that bus. I have never got any of them back, because I have never actually asked.
Fifth, the unwritten rules: on the top deck you do not claim the front seat if somebody smaller got there first. And you never speak to a stranger before nine in the morning. I broke that rule once, in Year 8, when a woman asked me for directions and I confidently sent her the wrong way. I have apologised to her in my head every day since. Your journey has taught you something too. Tell me below.
These two tenses both talk about the past, but they do different jobs. Use the past simple when you can point to the moment: yesterday, in 1933, last Friday, ten minutes ago. Use the present perfect when the moment does not matter, or when the time is not finished yet: I have lost my bus pass (and I still have not got it), I have been late twice this week (the week is not over). The rule that saves you in the exam is short: if the sentence names a finished time, you cannot use the present perfect.
| Past simple | Present perfect | |
|---|---|---|
| Positive | I lost my bus pass on Tuesday. | I have lost my bus pass. |
| Negative | I did not see the bus. | I have not seen the bus. |
| Question | Did you find it? | Have you found it? |
| Third person | She caught the 73 at eight o'clock. | She has caught the 73 twice today. |
| Time words it likes | yesterday, last week, in 1933, two years ago | ever, never, just, already, yet, for, since, this week |
| What it tells the listener | when it happened | that it happened, and that it still matters now |
Set A gives you everything. Set B takes away half the help. Set C takes away the rest. If you can only do A today, you have still done something real — do B tomorrow.
Notice the tense. Read each sentence and write PS for past simple or PP for present perfect. Then copy the word or phrase that told you which one it was. The key does item 1 for you.
Complete the gaps with one item from the word bank. There are more forms in the bank than you need, so read each sentence for its time expression first.
Build the sentence. Write it out in full, and use the tense named in the brackets. Item 1 is done for you as a model.
NILA(quick, warm) This is the Culture File, and Tom has just told you about a bus, a cake and a church. Now let us look at how this city actually moves its people around.
NILAI have brought five facts. Fact one is that the London Underground is the oldest in the world. The first section opened on the tenth of January 1863, and it was called the Metropolitan Railway.
TOMEighteen sixty-three is before the motor car, so how on earth did they pull the trains along?
NILASteam engines pulled them, through wooden carriages that were lit by gas lamps and full of smoke. Passengers came up onto the street coughing, and the line was crowded from the very first week. Today there are eleven lines and two hundred and seventy-two stations. Two hundred and seventy-two.
TOMAnd yet the thing is not really underground at all, whatever the name on the station says.
NILAOnly about forty-five per cent of the network runs below the surface, which is less than half. Out in the suburbs the trains run in daylight, past back gardens, allotments and school playing fields.
TOMThat is quite true. I can watch the Central line go past from my own kitchen window.
NILAFact two is one that Tom will enjoy, because the buses carry far more passengers than the Tube does. In 2023 and 2024 there were about 1.87 billion journeys on London buses and 1.18 billion on the Underground. One point eight seven billion on the buses, and one point one eight billion on the Tube.
TOMIn a nutshell, the bus does the heavy lifting and the Tube gets all the credit.
NILAThat brings me to the misconception, and it is a big one among visitors. The Tube is the famous part, but the bus network is the real workhorse of the city. If you only ever travel underground, you will learn London as a map rather than as a living place.
NILAFact three. London buses stopped taking cash in July 2014, so nobody pays the driver any more. You tap in with a bank card, a phone or an Oyster card on the yellow reader beside the door. A single bus fare costs one pound seventy-five, whatever distance you happen to travel that day.
TOMOne pound seventy-five, flat. And that price has stayed the same for a while now, has it not?
NILAIt is frozen until the first of November 2026, when it rises to one pound eighty-five. The daily limit for buses and trams goes up that day, from five pounds twenty-five to five pounds fifty-five.
TOMTell them about the Hopper fare, because most visitors have never even heard of it.
NILAOnce you have paid for one bus, you can change onto other buses or trams free for a whole hour. One payment, sixty minutes, and as many changes as your particular journey happens to need.
TOMWhich is how I reach my sister's house on two buses while paying only a single fare.
NILAFact four. The newest line is the Elizabeth line, which opened on the twenty-fourth of May 2022. It has already become the busiest single railway line in the whole of the United Kingdom. It carries up to eight hundred thousand journeys a day, on wide platforms with air conditioning.
TOMEight hundred thousand. Purple, very smooth, and slightly too clean for my personal taste.
NILA(grinning) Fact five. Since 2016, five Tube lines have run all night at weekends. They are the Victoria, the Central, the Jubilee, the Northern and the Piccadilly.
NILASo the honest picture is this. A London commute is almost never one single system. It is buses, trains, bikes and walking, and in the morning rush hour most people use at least two.
TOMAnd when something breaks down you take a long detour and you complain about it all week.
NILA(laughing) That is also part of the system. Right, here is your Talking Point for this unit.
NILAHow do you travel to work or to school, and how long does that journey usually take you?
NILANow say it again, and add one thing you would change about that journey.
TOMMine takes four minutes, because I walk to the corner and back again.
NILA(laughing) Show-off. That is the Culture File.
How do you travel to work or to school, and how long does that journey usually take you?
One minute each, then swap. Use at least two words from the vocabulary bank.
The 18 words and phrases of this unit, each shown in the phrase it lives in. Learn the phrase, not the word on its own.
Reading Part 1 and Listening Part 1 — short real-world texts and short recordings.
Six quick items. This is Unit 1, so everything comes from this unit, but each item tests a different piece of the grammar. Say your answer out loud before you write it.
Learn these five words first. You will hear all of them in the story.
Predict: the story is called “Grace at the Railings”. What do you think happens? Write one sentence before you listen.
Play: vocabulary warm-up→NILATom has been a volunteer guide near Victoria station since 2016, which is nearly ten years of pointing.
TOM(dry) It is not only pointing, because sometimes I carry a suitcase up the steps.
NILATell them about Grace, because this is the story I keep asking him for.
TOM(warm) It was a wet Tuesday in March, and I was standing outside the station in my orange jacket. A small woman in a green coat came up to me and asked where the post office had gone. She was eighty-four years old, and she was carrying a heavy shopping bag in each hand.
NILAAnd you got talking, because you always do.
TOMWe got talking. Her name was Grace, and she has lived in Pimlico since 1962. She came from Accra, that is A-C-C-R-A, as a young nurse, and she worked in one hospital for thirty years.
NILAPimlico is a stone's throw from Buckingham Palace.
TOMIt is about twenty minutes on foot, so I asked her the question that I ask everybody. Had she ever been down the road to watch the Changing of the Guard?
NILA(already knowing the answer) And what did she say to that?
TOMShe laughed at me and said the ceremony is for tourists, and she has never been a tourist here. Then she said something that has stayed with me. "That has been on my list for donkey's years."
NILAFor donkey's years. Unpack that one for us.
TOMDonkeys live a long time, and the phrase simply means a very long time indeed. If something has been on your list for donkey's years, you have put it off for far too long. We all have a list like that, and most of it never actually gets done.
NILASo you talked her into it.
TOMI told her three things. It is free, you do not need a ticket, and you do not have to queue up. She said she would think about it, and people who say that usually do not turn up.
NILABut she did turn up, or this would be a very short story.
TOMFriday morning, ten past ten, in the same green coat, which she has owned since 1979. We walked down together and I found her a place at the railings where she could see properly.
TOMThe crowd was five deep by half past ten, with cameras, umbrellas and children on shoulders. The Royal Standard was flying, which means the King himself is inside the building that day. Grace stood very straight and did not say a single word for twenty minutes.
NILAWas she disappointed, after waiting all that time to see it?
TOM(quietly) No, she was concentrating hard. (beat) Then the band came round the corner from the barracks.
TOMYou feel a military band in your chest a second before you properly hear it. The Guard came through in their red tunics, the crowd went quiet, and Grace gripped the railings. Hundreds of soldiers take part in that tradition every week, and all of them are serving soldiers.
NILAAnd what happened when the music actually started?
TOMThe band played a hymn, an old one, the sort you sing at school without thinking about it. Grace started singing, very softly, in her own voice, with her eyes closed.
NILA(moved) Oh, Tom.
TOMA girl of about nine was standing beside her, and she started singing too, because children copy people. By the end there were four of us, singing quietly at some railings on a Friday morning.
NILAYou sang, in public, in front of all those tourists?
TOMI made a noise, and it was not singing. (beat) Grace learned that hymn in Accra in 1948.
NILASixty years down the road, and she had never walked round the corner to see it.
TOMMore than sixty years, and she has lived on that doorstep since 1962 without once looking over the fence. She told me that people save the famous things for visitors, and then the visitors all go home.
NILAWhat did she do when the procession had marched away?
TOMShe bought me a cup of tea, and she has reminded me about it ever since, because she paid. Then she said she is bringing her granddaughter next month, and she wants the same royal spot.
NILAAnd has she been back since March?
TOMTwice, and she waves at me now like a duchess. (beat) She has promoted me, apparently.
Something new about monarchy and modern britain — this is not the story you just heard. Read it once straight through. Then read it again and underline every example of present perfect with for and since you can find. There are at least twelve.
Britain has had a king or a queen for more than a thousand years. In that time the country has collected some very strange habits. Here are five of them. Every one is real, and every one has survived into the age of the smartphone.
The monarch has two birthdays, and has done so for well over a century. King Charles the Third was born on the fourteenth of November 1948, but nobody parades down The Mall in November. Trooping the Colour has marked the official birthday for more than 260 years, and it happens in June, when the weather usually behaves.
Every July, men in scarlet shirts row up the River Thames counting swans. This is Swan Upping, and it has lasted for centuries: the Crown has claimed the swans on open water since at least the twelfth century. Young swans are lifted out, weighed, measured and checked for injuries from fishing hooks, and then put straight back. It sounds like a joke. It has been serious wildlife science for years.
The Royal Family has spoken to the country every Christmas Day since 1932. George the Fifth read the first message on the radio from Sandringham, and Rudyard Kipling wrote it for him. It lasted two and a half minutes, and about twenty million people listened. Families have argued about whether to watch it ever since.
If you want to know where the King is, look up. The Royal Standard flies above a palace when the monarch is inside, and the Union Flag when he is not. Here is a fact that has surprised visitors for years: the King does not live at Buckingham Palace. He has lived at Clarence House since 2003. The palace has been full of builders for several years, and the work should finish in March 2027.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY. The royal household receives public money called the Sovereign Grant. In 2025 and 2026 that grant was 132.1 million pounds, about one pound ninety-one for each person. The money comes from the profits of the Crown Estate, which has handed those profits to the government since 1760. Supporters say the monarchy has attracted visitors and goodwill for generations, and costs less than a cup of tea. Critics say a head of state should be elected, and that nobody should inherit a job for life. People have argued about this for decades. The opinion is yours.
Use this form when something started in the past and is still true now. You need have or has plus the past participle, and then one of two little words. Since points at the moment it began: since 2003, since Tuesday, since I was ten. For gives the length of time from then until now: for six years, for twenty minutes, for centuries. If you can answer the question 'when did it start?' use since. If you can answer 'how long?' use for.
| Example | for or since | What the word measures |
|---|---|---|
| Grace has lived in Pimlico since 1962. | since | the point in the past where it began |
| She has lived there for more than sixty years. | for | the length of time, from then until now |
| I have known Tom since we started work together. | since | a past event, not a clock time |
| We have waited at the railings for twenty minutes. | for | a number plus a word for time |
| Has the palace been closed for long? | for | questions follow exactly the same rule |
| The King has not lived there since 2003. | since | negatives follow exactly the same rule |
Set A gives you everything. Set B takes away half the help. Set C takes away the rest. If you can only do A today, you have still done something real — do B tomorrow.
Notice the time phrase. Read each sentence, find the words after for or since, then write for or since and say what that phrase measures. The key does item 1 for you.
Complete the gaps with one item from the word bank. The bank has more items than you need. Some gaps need a verb form and some need for or since.
Build the sentence with the present perfect, and choose for or since yourself. Item 1 is done for you as a model.
NILAThis is the Culture File, and today it is the monarchy, which is older than almost everything else here. There has been a king or a queen in this country for more than a thousand years.
TOMWith one gap, in the 1650s, when the country tried doing without one.
NILAIt lasted eleven years, and then they asked a king back again. (beat) Fact one is the simple one. The monarch is King Charles the Third, who became King on the eighth of September 2022. He was crowned at Westminster Abbey on the sixth of May 2023, and his heir is Prince William.
TOMEight months between those two dates. Why the wait?
NILAYou become monarch the moment the last one dies, so the reign starts immediately. A coronation is a ceremony, not a beginning, and a ceremony that size takes months to organise.
NILAFact two is the misconception, and it is probably the biggest one about this country. Visitors often believe that the King rules Britain and makes its laws, but he does not do either.
TOMHe has not chosen a government in his life, and neither did his mother.
NILAHe is head of state, and the Prime Minister is head of government, and those are two different jobs. Parliament makes the laws, and the King signs them afterwards, because the tradition says he should. He opens Parliament each year and reads a speech that the government has written for him.
TOMSo he reads somebody else's words while wearing a very heavy crown.
NILAMore or less, and he meets the Prime Minister regularly, in conversations that stay completely private. The rule is short: the monarch may advise and warn, but the monarch does not decide.
TOMWhich is why he keeps his cards close to his chest in public.
NILAFact three. Buckingham Palace has seven hundred and seventy-five rooms. Seven hundred and seventy-five. It has been the official London home of the monarch since 1837, when Queen Victoria moved in.
TOMAnd here comes the part that surprises people, because I had it wrong myself for years.
NILAThe King does not actually live there. He has lived at Clarence House since 2003 and intends to stay. The palace is getting new wiring, new pipes and new boilers, at a cost of three hundred and sixty-nine million pounds.
TOMThree hundred and sixty-nine million pounds, and that is only for pipes, wires and boilers.
NILAThe work should finish in March 2027, and the palace will stay the ceremonial centre of royal life. More of it will be open to visitors, which is one reason the King is not moving in.
TOMGo on then, tell me who actually pays for all of this.
NILAFact four. The royal household receives public money called the Sovereign Grant. In 2025 and 2026 that grant was one hundred and thirty-two point one million pounds.
TOMStraight out of my taxes, presumably.
NILANot quite, because it is calculated from the profits of the Crown Estate, an enormous property business. The Crown Estate has handed its profits to the government since 1760, and the grant comes back out of them. Per person, that grant worked out at about one pound ninety-one. One pound ninety-one.
TOMLess than a cup of tea, at the end of the day.
NILAWhether that is good value is exactly what people argue about.
NILAFact five, and this one is practical. Changing the Guard is free, and you never need a ticket. It usually begins at eleven o'clock, on several mornings a week, although the days do change.
TOMCheck the schedule the night before, and turn up by half past ten if you want to see anything.
NILAYou will be in a large crowd of tourists, so you may have to queue up along the railings early. And watch the flag, because the Royal Standard only flies when the King is in the building.
TOMIf the Union Flag is up there instead, he is somewhere else entirely.
NILAThe soldiers who take part are ordinary serving soldiers with ordinary jobs the rest of the year.
NILADoes your country have a king, a queen or a president, and what is that person actually allowed to do?
NILANow tell me one thing about it that you would change.
TOMI would give them all a free bus pass.
NILA(laughing) That is the Culture File.
Does your country have a king, a queen or a president, and what is that person actually allowed to do?
One minute each, then swap. Use at least two words from the vocabulary bank.
The 18 words and phrases of this unit, each shown in the phrase it lives in. Learn the phrase, not the word on its own.
Reading Part 3 — detailed comprehension, gist, inference and global meaning.
Six items, jumping between Unit 1 and Unit 2 on purpose. Read the label before each answer, because the two tenses look similar and behave differently.
| Annual rainfall — the reputation is not deserved | millimetres of rain |
|---|---|
| New York | 1,270 |
| London | 600 |
Learn these five words first. You will hear all of them in the story.
Predict: the story is called “The Man at the Bus Stop”. What do you think happens? Write one sentence before you listen.
Play: vocabulary warm-up→NILATom, you once told me your best conversation of the year lasted twenty minutes and covered nothing.
TOM(dry) That is correct, and I would happily have it again tomorrow.
NILAThen set the scene for us properly.
TOMIt was the second week of November, about half past four, and it was already going dark. I was standing under the shelter at a bus stop on Green Lanes, waiting for a 141, and it was absolutely chucking it down.
NILAChucking it down. Unpack that one, because a dictionary will not really help.
TOMIf it is chucking it down, the rain is coming straight at you and an umbrella is useless. We have about ten words for rain in this country, and each one means a different amount of misery. Drizzle is the fine stuff that soaks you slowly, a shower stops, and a downpour does not.
NILAAnd what had the forecast promised that morning?
TOMThe forecast had said light rain, which is what the forecast in this country always says.
NILASo there you are, wet and waiting, and who turned up?
TOMA man came and stood beside me under the same roof, holding a brown envelope. He was wearing a suit that did not quite fit him, and he had no coat at all. He was about fifty, and he was staring down the road at the traffic, which was barely moving.
NILADid you speak first?
TOMI never speak first. (beat) He did, and what he said was, "Lovely weather for it."
NILA(laughing) Lovely weather for it, while the rain was coming down sideways.
TOMThat is exactly the point, because nobody here means what they say about the weather. He was not describing the sky to me, he was breaking the ice.
NILABreaking the ice is the other phrase that people always ask about.
TOMPicture a frozen pond lying between two strangers, and neither of them can get across it. Breaking the ice means saying the first small, safe thing so that a conversation can begin. The weather is our ice-breaker, because it is the one subject that cannot offend anybody.
NILASo what did you say back to him?
TOMI said, "They promised us a dry week," which is nonsense but exactly the correct answer. He said the forecast had mentioned a chilly night, and I said it was milder than last Tuesday. We went on like that for five minutes without exchanging one single useful fact.
TOMThen the queue behind us grew, and somebody's shopping bag split, and we both laughed. After that we got talking about buses, and I made the mistake of mentioning that I used to drive them.
TOMAnd then, while he was telling me about his father's car, he suddenly went very quiet.
TOMHe looked down at the envelope in his hand and said, "I have got the hospital at half five." He did not say one word more about it, and he did not need to.
TOMI never asked him what was inside that envelope, and I still do not know. I said the 141 would get him there in twelve minutes, and that they always run late anyway.
NILAWas that the right thing to say?
TOMIt was the only thing to say, because here you do not bring up the big thing directly. You stand beside somebody in the rain and talk about nothing, and the nothing is the whole point.
NILAThat is the bit that people from outside never quite believe.
TOMThe small talk was not empty. It was a polite way of saying, "You are not standing here alone." He was frightened, he did not want to say so, and I did not make him say so.
NILAAnd then your bus arrived.
TOMIt was still drizzling when it pulled in, and he got on first and sat downstairs near the door. I went up top, because I always go up top, and at Turnpike Lane he got off.
NILADid he say anything as he went?
TOMHe turned round on the step and said, "Thanks for the chat." Four words, and then the doors closed.
NILA(quiet) And you never learned his name.
TOMI never learned his name and he never learned mine, and it was the best conversation of my year. (beat) It had brightened up by the time I got home, naturally, because it always does.
Something new about weather, small talk and british indirectness — this is not the story you just heard. Read it once straight through. Then read it again and underline every example of past continuous and past simple you can find. There are at least twelve.
On the evening of the fifteenth of October 1987, millions of people were sitting in front of the television. One forecast became the most famous ninety seconds in British broadcasting. Michael Fish was reading the bulletin when he mentioned a telephone call. A woman had rung the BBC about a hurricane, he said. He told viewers to relax, because no hurricane was coming.
He was not wrong, exactly. He was talking about a different storm, out over the Atlantic. But that night, while southern England was sleeping, a deep area of low pressure raced up from the Bay of Biscay.
The worst hours came between midnight and dawn on the sixteenth. While most of the country was lying in bed, the strongest gust hit Shoreham on the Sussex coast at ten past three. It reached 100 knots, which is about 115 miles an hour. Roofs were coming off, lorries were falling over on the motorways, and about fifteen million trees came down before breakfast.
People woke up to a country that had changed shape. Sevenoaks in Kent lost six of its seven famous oak trees, so the sign was telling a lie. At Kew Gardens, gardeners who were expecting an ordinary Friday found hundreds of rare trees on the grass.
The storm changed British forecasting for good. The Met Office was using computers in 1987, but it was not collecting enough information from the sea. Afterwards the service bought better computers and rebuilt the way it warns the public. Today it uses three warning colours: yellow, amber and red.
The British talk about the weather constantly, because it is undecided rather than dramatic. Research published in 2025 found that we spend about fifty-six and a half hours a year discussing it. We are not the wettest country in the world, only the one that keeps checking.
COMMENT, from Bev in Tunbridge Wells: I was eleven when the Great Storm arrived. I woke up because the window was rattling, and I still remember that rattle. My dad was standing on the landing in his dressing gown. In the morning our fence was lying in the neighbour's pond and a young tree was leaning on the shed. We had no electricity for four days, so we cooked on a camping stove and my mother said it was like a holiday. Best week of my childhood, if I am honest.
Use these two together to tell a story. The past continuous sets the scene: it is the longer action that was already going on, and it takes was or were plus an -ing verb. The past simple is the short thing that happens and finishes, often interrupting the longer action. So: I was waiting at the stop (long, in the background) when a stranger spoke to me (short, and it cuts in). While usually goes with the long one; when usually goes with the short one.
| Past continuous | Past simple | |
|---|---|---|
| Positive | I was waiting at the bus stop. | I waited for ten minutes. |
| Negative | It was not raining then. | It did not rain that day. |
| Question | What were you doing at three o'clock? | What did you do on Friday? |
| Its job in a story | the long action, already going on: the background | the short action that happens and finishes |
| With while | While the country was sleeping, ... | ... the storm arrived. |
| With when | I was standing on the landing ... | ... when the tree came down. |
Set A gives you everything. Set B takes away half the help. Set C takes away the rest. If you can only do A today, you have still done something real — do B tomorrow.
Notice the two tenses. Write PC beside every past continuous verb and PS beside every past simple verb. Then say which action was already happening. The key does item 1 for you.
Complete the gaps with one form from the word bank. There are more forms than gaps. Ask yourself each time whether the action was long and in the background, or short and finished.
Build the sentence. Join the two halves, or change the sentence as the bracket tells you. Item 1 is done for you as a model.
NILAThis is the Culture File, and today the subject is small talk, which is the real national sport.
TOMI was under the impression that football was the national sport.
NILAFootball is the national argument, but small talk is the national sport, and everybody has to play. Fact one comes straight from the Met Office, and I promise that I am not inventing it.
NILAResearch published in 2025 found that people here spend about fifty-six and a half hours a year discussing the weather. Fifty-six and a half hours is two days and nine hours of your life, every single year.
TOMTwo days and nine hours. Honestly, that sounds a bit low to me.
NILA(laughing) The same research found that sixty per cent name the weather as their first small talk subject. The news came second on thirty-four per cent, and family and holidays came after that.
TOMSo the weather beats the news, which tells you almost everything about this country.
NILAFact two is the misconception, and it is the one I am asked about most often. People arrive here convinced that it rains in Britain all day and every day, and it really does not.
TOMWe simply complain about it more loudly than anybody else.
NILALondon gets somewhere around six hundred millimetres of rain across a whole year. New York gets about one thousand two hundred and seventy millimetres, which is more than twice as much.
TOMNew York. More than twice the rain of London. Nobody ever puts that on a postcard either.
NILARain falls in London on roughly one hundred and six days a year, so about one day in three. Sydney, Miami and Rome are all wetter than we are, and yet we have the reputation.
TOMThe drizzle does it, hours and hours of the stuff, and it never quite clears up.
NILAThat is the honest explanation. Our weather is not dramatic, it is simply undecided. Fact three. The Met Office issues weather warnings in three colours: yellow, amber and red.
TOMYellow means take care, amber means change your plans, and red means stay at home.
NILAThat is a very good summary, and a red warning is genuinely rare. Fact four. The Met Office has named the storms in this part of Europe since 2015.
TOMAnd who decides on the names?
NILAThe Met Office does it with Met Eireann in Ireland and the weather service of the Netherlands. The names run through the alphabet each season, and they skip the letters Q, U, X, Y and Z.
TOMOnce a storm has a name, everybody talks about it for a solid week.
NILAWhich brings me to fact five, and this is the one that will actually help you socially. When somebody here mentions the weather, they are very rarely talking about the weather.
TOMThey are saying hello without going to the trouble of saying hello.
NILAThey are opening a door, and your reply matters far more than the content does. If you answer, the conversation is open, and if you say nothing, that is the end of it.
TOMThere are rules underneath it, mind you, and nobody ever writes them down.
NILAThen tell them the useful ones.
TOMAgree first, always, and if a stranger says it is cold, do not give the actual temperature. "Not bad" means good, "could be worse" means bad, and "mustn't grumble" means fairly bad.
NILAAnd what does "we must do this again some time" mean?
TOMIt means nothing whatsoever, and every person in the room knows that it means nothing.
NILA(laughing) This is exactly why learners find us exhausting to deal with. One more hint. People here say sorry constantly, and most of the time it is not an apology.
TOMYou say sorry when somebody else steps on your foot, and I do it daily.
NILAIt is a social noise that means "we are both here, so let us not make a fuss". Do not translate it, just use it, and you will sound local inside a week.
NILAWhat do people in your country say to a stranger when they want to start a conversation?
NILANow start one in English, out loud, using the weather where you are sitting today.
TOMIt is chucking it down here, since you ask.
NILA(laughing) That is the Culture File.
What do people in your country say to a stranger when they want to start a conversation?
One minute each, then swap. Use at least two words from the vocabulary bank.
The 18 words and phrases of this unit, each shown in the phrase it lives in. Learn the phrase, not the word on its own.
Speaking Parts 1 and 4 — the interview and the general conversation.
Six items from Units 1 to 3. Every label names the unit the grammar comes from, so read it before you answer. Two of these look easy and are not.
Learn these five words first. You will hear all of them in the story.
Predict: the story is called “The Last Night of the Old Menu”. What do you think happens? Write one sentence before you listen.
Play: vocabulary warm-up→NILATom, you have eaten in the same curry house since well before I was born.
TOM(dry) The Shapla, on the High Road, where I first went in 1989 and never really stopped.
NILAAnd now, after forty years, something is changing.
TOM(beat) Mr Miah opened that place in 1985 and he has run it ever since. He came here from Sylhet, that is S-Y-L-H-E-T, in 1971, and he worked in three kitchens before his own.
NILAAnd what is happening in September?
TOMHe is seventy-eight now, so his daughter Ruby is taking over the whole business.
NILAHow did you feel when you heard that?
TOM(carefully) I am going to be honest with you, I was properly worried about it. There was a sign in the window in July that said, "New menu from the first of September."
NILAA new menu is hardly a crime, Tom.
TOMI know. But I have ordered the same dish in that restaurant for thirty-six years. Lamb bhuna, pilau rice, one plain naan, and they have served it to me without asking.
NILASo what did you decide to do?
TOMWhat any sensible man does, which was to book a table for the last night of the old menu. The thirty-first of August, seven o'clock, at the table by the window, which has always been mine.
NILAWas it busy?
TOMIt was packed to the rafters, because every regular in the neighbourhood had had the same idea. People do not eat out as often as they used to, and half the business is takeaway now.
NILAAnd how was Mr Miah that evening?
TOMHe was standing by the till in a good jacket, shaking hands like a man at a wedding. He kept repeating one sentence to everybody. "My daughter will look after you all."
NILADid you believe him?
TOMNot immediately, and then Ruby came out of the kitchen and sat down at my own table. She said, "You are going to order the lamb bhuna, and I am going to bring you something else."
NILA(laughing) She had clearly done her homework on you.
TOMShe had, because she has cooked in restaurants in Birmingham and Leeds for eleven years. She told me the classics are staying, because you never throw away the food that people love.
NILABut she is changing something.
TOMShe is putting her grandmother's recipes on the menu, right next to the old favourites. Sylheti dishes, the food her family actually eats at home, which has never been on that menu.
NILAWhat did she bring out for you to try?
TOMBeef cooked with a fruit called shatkora, which is a citrus, like a bitter, perfumed lemon. I have eaten a great deal of curry in my life and I had never tasted anything like it.
NILAWas it spicy?
TOMIt was fairly mild, actually, but sharp and deep and slightly strange, and I finished the lot. Ruby watched me the whole time, the way a chef does, and then she laughed at my face.
NILA(delighted) So it went down a storm.
TOMIt did, and if something goes down a storm, people love it immediately and say so loudly. The phrase comes from the theatre, where a good act takes the applause like weather. That dish is going to go down a storm, and I told her so before I left.
NILANow tell them about the menu on the wall.
TOM(warm) That was the real moment, because on my way out I noticed a picture frame beside the door. Inside it was the old laminated menu, the sticky one I have read about a thousand times.
NILAShe framed the menu.
TOMShe framed the menu, and on the back, showing through the glass, is her father's handwriting. It is a list of prices from 1985, worked out in pencil, with two of them crossed out.
NILA(quietly) That is lovely.
TOMMr Miah is not disappearing, by the way, because he is coming in on Sundays to sit by the window. Half the staff have worked there for twenty years, and none of them are leaving either.
NILAAnd are you going back?
TOMI am eating there on Friday, and I am going to order the beef. She is also bringing back a fish dish that her father took off the menu in 1992. I will try that out too, because at my age you should not be frightened of a menu.
Something new about food, migration and the modern british menu — this is not the story you just heard. Read it once straight through. Then read it again and underline every example of future forms: will, going to, and the present continuous you can find. There are at least twelve.
Our school food club went to Ladypool Road in Birmingham last Saturday, and I am writing it up before I forget. Four stars. I am not going to name the restaurant, because my dad says we should wait until they mend the chairs. Everything else was excellent, and I will explain why.
First, some background, because you are going to need it. A balti is not Indian. Pakistani cooks in Birmingham invented it in the 1970s, and Adil's in Sparkbrook, which opened in 1977, claims to be the first. The whole thing arrives in a thin steel bowl that is still spitting. If you order one, you will hear it before you see it.
The Balti Triangle is three roads: Ladypool Road, Stoney Lane and Stratford Road. In its best years about fifty balti houses were open here. By 2023 only four were left. I will come back to that. The good part is the noise, the lights and the smell, which will follow you home on your coat.
We ordered four baltis and shared them. The lamb was the best: deep, dark and slightly smoky. The naan arrived the size of a pillow, and it is going to appear in my dreams. Do not fill up on poppadoms, or you will regret it.
Service: friendly, fast and slightly too honest. The waiter looked at our order and said, 'You are not going to finish that.' He was right. Two of us are going back on Friday, and this time we are booking a table. Four of us ate well for the price of two cinema tickets.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY. Not everybody tells the story of British food the same way. Some people say a menu like this one shows the country at its best. Families came, they cooked, they worked long hours, and the high street changed for the better. Others say older British food gets pushed out, and that towns are losing the dishes their grandparents ate. You will hear both sides, and you can decide.
VERDICT: four stars, and I am going to argue for five once the chairs are mended. The families who run these places are getting older, and many of their children are choosing other careers. If you live near a balti house, go this month. I am taking my grandmother in July. She is going to complain about the chilli, and she is going to eat every bit of it.
English has three everyday ways of talking about the future, and the one you choose tells the listener something extra. Use will when you decide as you speak, when you promise, or when you predict something with no evidence in front of you. Use going to when the plan was already in your head before you opened your mouth, or when you can see the evidence coming. Use the present continuous for an arrangement that is already fixed, usually with a time, a place or other people in it.
| Form | Example | Use it when ... |
|---|---|---|
| will | I will explain why. | you decide as you speak, or you promise, or you predict |
| will not (won't) | Some of these places will not be here in ten years. | you predict something, without evidence in front of you |
| going to | I am going to order the lamb. | you decided before you spoke; the plan was already there |
| going to (evidence) | That naan is going to appear in my dreams. | you can see the evidence right in front of you |
| present continuous | We are booking a table on Friday. | the arrangement is fixed: a time, a place or other people |
| questions | Will you pass the water? Are you going to eat that? What are you doing on Saturday? | the same three forms, simply turned round |
Set A gives you everything. Set B takes away half the help. Set C takes away the rest. If you can only do A today, you have still done something real — do B tomorrow.
Notice the form. Read each sentence and write will, going to or present continuous. Then say in three or four words why that form fits. The key does item 1 for you.
Complete the gaps with one form from the word bank. There are more forms than gaps. The words after the gap usually tell you which future the sentence needs.
Build the sentence, and choose the future form yourself. The bracket tells you what kind of future it is. Item 1 is done for you as a model.
NILAThis is the Culture File, and today we are going to take apart the modern British menu.
TOMWhich is a much stranger and much more recent thing than most people imagine.
NILAIt is. Fact one, and it is the one that surprises almost everybody who hears it. More than eight out of every ten Indian restaurants in Britain are run by Bangladeshi families.
TOMNot Indian families at all, but Bangladeshi families, which is quite a different thing.
NILAAnd about ninety-five per cent of those families come from one region, called Sylhet. Sylhet is in the north-east of Bangladesh, and that is spelled S-Y-L-H-E-T.
TOMSo why does the sign outside say Indian?
NILABecause the restaurants opened when "Indian" was the word that British customers understood. Men came over to work, they cooked, they saved, and they opened their own places. There were about twenty of these restaurants in 1946, three hundred by 1960 and thousands by 1980.
TOMMy local opened in 1985, and that was late in the story.
NILAWhich takes me neatly to the misconception, and it is a serious one. Visitors assume that the food in a British curry house is what people eat in India.
TOMAnd it simply is not the same food at all, is it?
NILAA great deal of it was created here, by South Asian cooks, for British customers. The whole shape of the meal is British: poppadoms first, then a curry, rice, naan and a lager.
TOMChicken tikka masala being the obvious example that everybody reaches for.
NILAFact two. In April 2001 the Foreign Secretary of the day, Robin Cook, gave a speech about identity. He called chicken tikka masala "a true British national dish", and the phrase stuck for good.
TOMAnd where does the dish itself come from?
NILAPeople argue about that, and they will go on arguing. One restaurant in Glasgow claims it. The Shish Mahal has said for years that its founder invented the sauce for a customer.
TOMA customer who wanted some gravy on his chicken, more or less, back in the 1970s.
NILAMore or less, and you can decide for yourself whether that story is true. Either way, nobody in Delhi was cooking it first, and that is the point worth remembering.
TOMRight, so what about the food that was already here before any of that?
NILAFact three. A study published in June 2026 counted about seven thousand two hundred fish and chip shops. Seven thousand two hundred, across the whole United Kingdom, and the first ones opened in the 1860s.
TOMFried fish came from Jewish families in London, and the chips came up from the north of England.
NILAExactly, so the national dish before the curry was already two traditions stuck together. That is really the whole story of British food, repeated every fifty years or so.
TOMGo on then. What is on the high street now?
NILAFact four. In any decent-sized town you will find Turkish and Kurdish grills, Cantonese takeaways, Polish shops, Caribbean bakeries, West African cafés and Italian coffee bars.
TOMAnd the corner café, which is a species entirely of its own invention.
NILAThe greasy spoon is cheap and fast, and it will serve you a full English breakfast at any hour.
TOMEggs, bacon, sausage, beans, mushrooms, toast and a mug of tea you can stand a spoon in.
NILAFact five, and this one is about the future rather than the past. Many curry houses are closing, because the children of the founders are choosing other careers.
TOMRuby went back into the family business, though, and a good number of them do.
NILASome do, and the ones who do are changing the menus rather than keeping them. They are putting regional dishes on, and they are dropping the dishes nobody orders any more.
TOMWhich means the British menu is going to keep moving, exactly as it always has.
NILAWhat food has come into your country from somewhere else and become completely normal?
NILANow say who brought it, and what you are going to order the next time you eat out.
TOMBeef with shatkora, and I am not going to share it.
NILA(laughing) That is the Culture File.
What food has come into your country from somewhere else and become completely normal?
One minute each, then swap. Use at least two words from the vocabulary bank.
The 18 words and phrases of this unit, each shown in the phrase it lives in. Learn the phrase, not the word on its own.
Writing Part 2 — the article. Food is one of the commonest prompts.
Six items from Units 1 to 4. They jump between units on purpose, so check the label first and do not answer on autopilot.
Learn these five words first. You will hear all of them in the story.
Predict: the story is called “Six in the Morning at the Car Boot”. What do you think happens? Write one sentence before you listen.
Play: vocabulary warm-up→NILATom rang me at half past five in the morning, on a Sunday, in October.
TOM(unrepentant) And you answered, which means that you were already awake.
NILAI was not awake, so tell them where you were taking me.
TOMTo a car boot sale, in a field behind a school, six miles outside London. If you want the good stuff you have to be standing there before the gates open at seven.
NILAExplain the rules, because he gave me them in the car and I wrote them down.
TOMThere are five of them, none of them optional, and the first is that you must take cash. You should bring along plenty of change, because most sellers cannot take a card at all.
NILAAnd rule two?
TOMTwo: you should not turn up in a smart coat, because sellers price the coat and not the object. Three: you have to be ready to get muddy, because a field in October is a field in October.
NILARule four was my favourite.
TOMFour: you must never pay the first price you are offered, and it is not rude to ask. Five: you should keep your eyes peeled the entire time, in every possible direction.
NILAKeep your eyes peeled. Unpack that one for us.
TOMWhen you peel something, you take the skin off it, like an orange or a potato. Peeled eyes are wide open eyes, with nothing in the way, missing nothing. At a car boot sale the good thing is under a table, in a box, at the bottom.
NILASo we arrived, and it was still dark.
TOMThe sellers set up from six o'clock, with cars in rows and blankets laid on the grass. Every stall pays a pitch fee to be there, usually somewhere between five and twenty pounds. Everything on that field is second-hand, and that is the whole point.
TOMFor the first hour it is very serious, and after ten it becomes a day out. By one o'clock everybody packs up, so you must not have a lie-in on a Sunday.
NILAI bought a teapot, and I am still proud of myself. The man wanted two pounds. I offered him one pound. We shook hands on one pound fifty.
TOMThat is haggling, and you did it properly, which means quickly and with a smile. You should never haggle over ten pence, though, because that is simply mean. A bargain is not the cheapest thing on the table, it is the right thing at the wrong price.
NILAMeanwhile Tom had disappeared underneath somebody's table.
TOMThere was a cardboard box on the grass marked "fifty pence each", full of old plugs, a cassette player, curtain hooks and genuine junk. I was rummaging through the bottom of it when I found a heavy roll of linen.
NILA(leading him) And what exactly had you found?
TOM(quietly pleased) It was a destination blind, the roll that used to go in the front of a bus. They are printed on cloth, and the driver winds them round until the right name shows.
TOMAbout three feet wide, and when you unroll it, it goes on for twenty feet or more. This one was route 38, my own route, with every stop I drove for thirty-four years in white on black.
NILA(delighted) What did you say to him?
TOMI asked him what he wanted for it, he said four pounds, and I picked it up for four pounds. I did not haggle at all, because there are things a person must not haggle over.
NILAAnd then you unrolled it in the mud.
TOMI unrolled half of it across the wet grass, because I could not help myself. The sellers on both sides stopped what they were doing and read the names out loud.
TOMVictoria, Hyde Park Corner, Piccadilly Circus, Islington Green, Clapton Pond, all in a row. A woman on the next stall told me her father had driven the 38 in the sixties.
NILAYou should have seen his face.
TOMIt cost four pounds, and a framed print of it would cost an arm and a leg. It is worth a great deal more than four pounds to me, and it always will be.
NILAWhere is it now?
TOMIt has hung in my hallway since that Sunday, and I look at it every morning. (beat) You would honestly not believe the things that people throw away.
Something new about second-hand britain — this is not the story you just heard. Read it once straight through. Then read it again and underline every example of modals of obligation, prohibition and advice you can find. There are at least twelve.
Subject: a second-hand uniform and kit shop, written by the Year 9 representatives. You do not have to read all of this, but you should read the three recommendations at the end. We think the school ought to open a second-hand shop, and we think it should open in September.
Here is the problem. According to the Schoolwear Association, compulsory secondary uniform and sportswear cost an average of 92 pounds 35 for each pupil in 2024. The year before it was 96 pounds 24. That is a lot of money for clothes you must wear and cannot choose. A Year 7 blazer must last, and very often it does not.
There is a second problem, and it is not about money. WRAP, the organisation that studies waste in Britain, found that people here put 49 per cent of used textiles straight into the bin. A blazer that fits nobody in this building must not end up in a bin bag.
The law is on our side: schools in England have to follow the government's guidance on uniform costs. That guidance says schools should make second-hand uniform available to parents, and must publish the information on the school website. From September 2026, a secondary school cannot require more than four branded items. So we do not have to invent anything.
This is how it should work: parents ought to be able to donate at reception on any morning. Nothing should cost more than two pounds, and we must never ask a family who cannot pay. We must not sell anything electrical, because somebody has to test it first.
We also want to run a school car boot sale in the summer term. Families should be able to book a pitch for five pounds. Buyers should arrive early, and they must not be shy about haggling. A price at a car boot sale is only ever an opening offer.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY. We should be honest, because not everybody likes this idea. Some students say that second-hand uniform is embarrassing, and that nobody should have to wear it. Others say the opposite. More than 9,900 charity shops handed 300 million pounds to good causes in 2024 and 2025. Both feelings are real, and the council should listen to both. Our three recommendations follow. One, the school must open the shop in September. Two, it should price nothing above two pounds. Three, it must not put anybody's name on any label, ever.
These little words tell your listener how strong you are being. Must and have to both mean it is necessary: use have to when the rule comes from outside you, from a law or a school, and must when the rule comes from you or from the situation. Do not have to means the opposite of necessary: it is your choice. Careful with the negatives, because they are not a pair: must not means somebody forbids it, while do not have to means nobody minds. Should and ought to are gentler; they only give advice.
| What you mean | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| It is necessary, and the situation demands it | must | You must bring cash to a car boot sale. |
| It is necessary, and the rule comes from outside | have to / has to | Schools have to follow the guidance on uniform costs. |
| It is not necessary, so you may choose | do not have to | You do not have to read the whole report. |
| It is forbidden, so do not do it | must not / cannot | You must not leave donation bags outside overnight. |
| It is a good idea | should / ought to | You should arrive early if you want the bargains. |
| It is a bad idea | should not | You should not haggle over ten pence. |
Set A gives you everything. Set B takes away half the help. Set C takes away the rest. If you can only do A today, you have still done something real — do B tomorrow.
Notice the meaning. Read each sentence and write R if it is a rule, N if it is not necessary, F if it is forbidden, or A if it is advice. Then say which word told you. The key does item 1 for you.
Complete the gaps with one modal from the word bank. There are more modals than gaps. Read the reason in the second half of each sentence before you choose.
Build the sentence. Use the meaning in the brackets, and join the two halves with because where it helps. Item 1 is done for you as a model.
NILAThis is the Culture File, and today the subject is second-hand Britain, which is a far bigger part of national life than most visitors expect.
TOMIt is also a great deal older than most people imagine it to be.
NILAFact one proves exactly that. Britain's first permanent charity shop was opened by Oxfam in Oxford. It opened at seventeen Broad Street in February 1948, and there is still a shop on that spot.
TOMFebruary 1948. That is not a modern fashion, that is nearly eighty years of trading.
NILAFact two. There are now more than nine thousand nine hundred charity shops across the United Kingdom. More than nine thousand nine hundred, and they run with the help of over two hundred thousand volunteers.
TOMTwo hundred thousand people, quietly giving away their Saturday mornings for nothing.
NILAThe figure was above two hundred and twenty-three thousand volunteers in the middle of 2026. And it works, because in 2024 and 2025 those shops handed over three hundred million pounds to their charities.
TOMThree hundred million pounds, raised from other people's old jumpers and paperbacks.
NILAWhich brings me straight to the misconception, and this particular one annoys me. People assume that charity shops exist only for those who cannot afford to buy anything new.
TOMThat is old hat, and it has not been true for a very long time, if ever.
NILASecond-hand shopping here crosses every income group, and much of it is about waste rather than money. The sector also employs about twenty-three thousand paid staff, working alongside all those volunteers.
TOMSo it is a proper industry, with managers, training courses and window displays.
NILAFact three is how the money actually works, and there are two clever parts to it. Over ninety per cent of what a charity shop sells comes from donations, and only about six per cent is new.
TOMGo on, then, and tell me what the first clever part is.
NILAIt is called Gift Aid. If you give your name when you donate, the shop claims an extra twenty-five pence. Twenty-five pence in every pound, from the government, on top of whatever your old coat sells for.
TOMAnd what is the second clever part of it?
NILACharity shops get eighty per cent off their business rates, which is the tax a shop pays on its building. That is one reason a charity can afford a unit on a high street when other retailers cannot.
TOMYou still have to run the place properly, mind. A badly run shop closes like any other.
NILAFact four is the car boot sale, which is the other half of second-hand Britain. Sellers pay a pitch fee, usually between five and twenty pounds, and they keep everything they take.
TOMYou should turn up at six if you are selling and by seven if you want the bargains.
NILAYou must bring cash, because most sellers cannot take cards, and you ought to bring your own bags. Prices are never fixed, and if you do not haggle then you are not really doing it properly.
TOMEverybody packs up by about one o'clock, so you must not lie in bed on a Sunday.
NILAFact five, and it is a practical one. A charity shop cannot sell everything that arrives at the door. Electrical items have to be tested before they go on sale, and safety rules cover children's things.
TOMWhich is why the volunteer behind the counter may politely refuse your old kettle or a used car seat.
NILAAnd one small request from every shop manager in the country. Please do not leave bags outside overnight.
TOMRain ruins everything, and then the shop has to pay somebody to throw it all away.
NILATake the bag inside during opening hours and hand it over, and tick the Gift Aid form.
TOMAnd you should still rummage, because one man's rubbish is another man's treasure, and the good things go fast.
NILAVolunteers sort the donations every single morning, so the shelves change completely between one visit and the next.
NILAWhat is the best second-hand thing that you have ever bought, or been given?
NILANow say what you paid for it, and what you think it was really worth.
TOMFour pounds, and I am not selling it to anybody.
NILA(laughing) That is the Culture File.
What is the best second-hand thing that you have ever bought, or been given?
One minute each, then swap. Use at least two words from the vocabulary bank.
The 18 words and phrases of this unit, each shown in the phrase it lives in. Learn the phrase, not the word on its own.
Reading Part 5 — multiple-choice cloze, which tests exactly this vocabulary.
Six items from Units 2 to 5. Each label names the unit the grammar comes from. Cover the answers, work down the list, then mark your own.
Learn these five words first. You will hear all of them in the story.
Predict: the story is called “The Week Before Thursday”. What do you think happens? Write one sentence before you listen.
Play: vocabulary warm-up→TOM(warm, unhurried) My neighbour Danny is sixteen years old, and this week the boy cannot sit still for more than a minute.
NILA(knowing) Results day. Everybody in Britain remembers exactly where they were standing when they opened that envelope.
TOMThursday the twentieth of August, and he has counted the days since the middle of July. (beat) The twentieth.
NILAHow many papers did he sit in the summer, and was there any coursework as well?
TOMNine papers over five weeks, plus coursework in art and design technology, which he finished back in March.
NILA(laughing) I revised for mine at the kitchen table, and my cards ended up under the cat.
TOMDanny revised in the kitchen too, because he said his own bedroom was far too comfortable to work in.
NILAIs he worried about all nine subjects, or is there one that keeps him awake at night?
TOMOne. Maths, which has never been his strongest subject, and in February's mock exam he only got a three.
NILAA three is just underneath the line, because in England a grade four counts as the standard pass.
TOMSo if he gets a four on Thursday, he will let out the biggest breath of his entire life.
NILAAnd if he doesn't, he'll have to resit it, because the rule says English and maths continue until you pass.
TOM(dry) Nobody escapes maths in this country, whatever they tell you at the school gate.
NILASo what has he decided to do afterwards, and did his careers adviser help him choose?
TOMThe adviser printed a list of every route out of Year Eleven, and Danny read it once and put it in a drawer.
NILA(amused) Because he already knew.
TOMHe has wanted an apprenticeship since he was fourteen, so sixth form was never really in the running.
NILADoing what?
TOMCars. There's a garage on the Old Kent Road that takes on two apprentices each September, and he did a work placement there at Easter.
NILAAnd they liked him enough to remember his name afterwards.
TOMThey liked him. The owner is a woman called Bev, who has run that garage for twenty-two years.
NILA(impressed) Twenty-two years. So he is ahead of everybody else in his year, then.
TOMNot quite, because Bev needs a grade four in maths before she can take him on, and that is the rule.
NILASo everything comes back to the same paper, and his sister must be tired of telling him it will be fine.
TOMChloe is eighteen, and she got her own A-level results the week before his, on the thirteenth.
NILAIs she going straight to university, or has she taken a gap year instead?
TOMA gap year with deferred entry, so her place waits for her until next September while she works in a garden centre.
NILA(warmly) One of my friends went through clearing on results day itself and ended up loving the course she found.
TOMChloe says something similar, and she told Danny that nothing is ever really finished on results day.
TOMNow here is the part of the story I liked, because on Wednesday evening Danny walked down to the garage.
NILA(quietly) The night before. That took some courage.
TOMBev was locking up, and he asked her straight out what would happen if he failed maths again.
NILAWhat on earth did she say to him?
TOMShe put the keys in her pocket and told him that she had failed maths twice herself.
NILA(surprised) Twice?
TOMTwice. She took it up again at college at nineteen, on Tuesday evenings, and passed it on the third attempt.
NILA(moved) So she kept the door open for him.
TOMShe said this. If he gets the four, he starts on the first of September. If he doesn't, he starts anyway and sits the paper again in November.
NILAAnd once Danny understood that, he stopped being frightened of Thursday morning.
TOMCompletely. He's painting his mum's fence, and as soon as he finishes the fence he says he'll clean his boots.
NILA(amused) Boots, for a garage.
TOMFor a garage, because he wants to look like a man who turns up properly.
NILAAnd when the results finally come out on Thursday, what will you say to him?
TOMThe whole street will know within four minutes, so I'll shake his hand at the gate and ask him what time he starts.
Something new about the education system and what comes next — this is not the story you just heard. Read it once straight through. Then read it again and underline every example of first conditional and time clauses you can find. There are at least twelve.
Mrs Farrell, the exams officer at Parkside Academy, has run the hall for eleven years. She builds the seating plan, opens the sealed papers and stands beside the clock. Each entry is one pupil sitting one exam, and about two thousand were hers this summer. Aisha, from Year 10, asked her what happens once the doors are closed.
Q: What is the first thing we should do when we walk into the hall? A: Find your own name. Every chair is set 1.25 metres from every other chair, in all directions. Once you sit down, you will see a card with your candidate number on it. If you cannot find your seat, put your hand up and an invigilator will come to you.
Q: Is it true that a watch can get you disqualified? A: Sadly it is, and it is the rule pupils forget most often. If you bring a watch or a phone into that room, you will be in serious trouble. That is true even if it stays in your pocket. Leave it all in your bag before you come through the door.
Q: What happens if somebody is late? A: Come in quietly. If you arrive ten minutes early, nobody will notice you at all. If you are twenty minutes late, we will let you sit the paper, and you will finish when the others do. If you turn up more than an hour after the start, we may not be allowed to accept your paper.
Q: Has anything ever gone badly wrong? A: The fire alarm went off in the middle of a French listening paper. As soon as the fire engines left, we brought everybody back in and started the clock again. If that ever happens to you, do not panic.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY. Not everybody agrees that this is the best way to test a sixteen-year-old. Some people say that if every pupil sits the same paper on the same morning, the marking will be fair. Others say that if schools used more coursework, pupils would show what they can really do.
Q: What is your advice for Year 11? A: Three things. If you revise for twenty minutes every evening from January, you will not need to panic in May. When your timetable arrives in the spring, put it on the fridge, because your family will stop asking. And when the last paper is over, you will feel oddly flat rather than delighted. Once that envelope is open, the summer starts properly.
Use the first conditional when something is really possible in the future: if this happens, that will happen. The sentence has two halves. The If half is the condition, and it uses the present simple, even though you are talking about the future. The other half is the result, and it takes will or won't. Time words - when, as soon as, once, before, after, until - behave in exactly the same way: present simple after the time word, will in the other half. If the If half or the time half comes first, put a comma after it. If it comes second, you need no comma at all.
| What it does | Condition or time half (present simple) | Result half (will / won't) | Watch out |
|---|---|---|---|
| a real future possibility | If I get a grade four, | I will start at the garage in September. | if + present simple, never if + will |
| a possibility you do not want | If I do not pass maths, | I will resit the paper in November. | won't works in the result half too |
| the halves can swap round | I will ring you if the results come early. | (same meaning, no comma) | comma only when the if half comes first |
| when: you know it will happen | When the results come out, | the whole street will know in four minutes. | when = certain; if = possible |
| as soon as / once: immediately after | As soon as I finish the fence, | I will clean my boots. | still present simple after as soon as |
| before / after / until | I will not open the envelope until my sister arrives. | (one sentence, no comma) | until + present simple for future time |
Set A gives you everything. Set B takes away half the help. Set C takes away the rest. If you can only do A today, you have still done something real — do B tomorrow.
Notice the form. Copy each sentence and underline the condition or time half - the part with if, when, as soon as, once, before, after or until. Then write P if that half uses the present simple, and W if it uses will.
Complete the gaps with one word or phrase from the word bank. There are eleven words and only eight gaps, so three are left over.
Build the whole sentence and write it out. Item 1 is done for you as a model.
NILA(bright) Tom's story is full of words a learner will meet again, so let's take the whole system apart properly.
TOMStart with the letters, because G-C-S-E means absolutely nothing to anybody outside these islands.
NILAGeneral Certificate of Secondary Education, and most students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland sit them at fifteen or sixteen.
TOMThe grades in England are numbers now, which confuses anybody who left school before 2017.
NILANine down to one, where nine is the top. A grade four is a standard pass, and a grade five is a strong pass.
TOMWhich is exactly why Danny's four matters so much to him.
NILAIt matters because of the resit rule. If a student in England gets below a four in English or maths, they must carry on studying it.
TOMAnd that leads straight into the thing people abroad get wrong about leaving school here.
NILAGo on, say it out loud.
TOMThey assume you can walk out of school at sixteen and simply stop, and in England you cannot.
NILAYou can leave school at sixteen, but you have to stay in education or training until you are eighteen.
TOMAnd there are three different ways of doing that, as I understand it.
NILAThree. Full-time study at a school or college, which is around eighteen hours a week; an apprenticeship; or a full-time job with part-time training alongside it.
TOMIs getting into sixth form automatic if you want a place?
NILANot always. Many sixth forms ask for a certain number of grade fives, and some subjects ask for a six or a seven.
TOMSo the doors are different widths, depending on where you knock.
NILAThey are, and that is why some students drop a subject at sixteen and take up something completely new at college.
TOMAnd university applications, when they eventually come?
NILAThey go through one system called UCAS, and if a student holds no offer on results day, they can look for a place through clearing.
TOMWhich happens in the same week and moves extremely fast.
NILAWithin hours, in some subjects. Now here is the misconception I most want to correct.
TOMThat every young person in Britain takes GCSEs and then A levels.
NILA(firmly) No, and this is the part people miss completely, because Scotland has an entirely different system.
TOMDifferent exams, or simply different names for the same thing?
NILADifferent exams, different names and different years. Scottish students take National 5 in S4, then Highers in S5 and Advanced Highers in S6.
TOMAnd who runs those examinations now?
NILAA body called Qualifications Scotland, which took over from the old SQA on the second of December 2025.
TOMWales has changed as well, hasn't it?
NILAWales now has brand-new made-for-Wales GCSEs. The first fifteen were taught from September 2025, and a second group of ten starts this September.
TOM(mildly) So four nations and four different answers, which is becoming the theme of this whole series.
NILAIt's the honest summary of nearly everything we discuss. One more piece of news, because it will affect the next set of teenagers.
TOMGo on then.
NILAEngland is introducing V levels, which are vocational qualifications the same size as an A level, and the first students start in September 2027.
TOMThere's a phrase Danny's careers adviser kept using, which is "keep your options open".
NILAUnpack it for us.
TOMIf you keep your options open, you don't shut any doors too early, and you choose subjects that let you change your mind later.
NILAWhich is sensible advice at sixteen, and probably at any age at all.
TOMIt's good advice at sixty. I dropped French at fourteen and I have regretted it ever since.
NILA(laughing) There it is. Right, Talking Point.
NILA(directly to the listener) At what age do young people in your country take their most important exams? And who chooses the subjects — the student, the school, or the family?
NILASay your answer out loud before you carry on, even if you happen to be sitting on a bus.
TOMEspecially if you are sitting on a bus.
NILA(warm) Next week it's football, and Tom claims he goes to matches where the crowd is smaller than the queue for tea.
TOMIt is perfectly true, and I have counted both of them.
At what age do young people in your country take their most important exams? And who chooses the subjects — the student, the school, or the family?
One minute each, then swap. Use at least two words from the vocabulary bank.
The 18 words and phrases of this unit, each shown in the phrase it lives in. Learn the phrase, not the word on its own.
Writing Part 1 — the email, responding to given content points.
Six items, one from every unit so far. They jump about on purpose, so read the label before you answer.
Learn these five words first. You will hear all of them in the story.
Predict: the story is called “Two Hundred and Fourteen”. What do you think happens? Write one sentence before you listen.
Play: vocabulary warm-up→TOM(warm) Every other Saturday I walk twenty minutes to a football ground that most people have never heard of.
NILAGive it a name for us.
TOMMarsh End Football Club, who play at level eight, which is a long way down in the non-league world.
NILAHow deep is deep, in practical terms?
TOMIf you climbed the ladder from Marsh End all the way to the Premier League, you would need seven separate promotions.
NILADescribe the place to somebody who has only ever seen football on television.
TOMOne stand with a roof, one stand without, a tea hut, and a hedge along the far side with gardens behind it.
NILAAnd what time is kick-off?
TOMThree o'clock, exactly as it always was, and my season ticket cost eighty pounds for the entire year.
NILAEighty pounds for a season? That is less than one afternoon at a big club.
TOMIf I wanted a single ticket in the Premier League, I might easily pay more than that for ninety minutes.
NILASo who else turns up on a matchday in a place like Marsh End?
TOMRoughly two hundred people, and Ray, who runs the tea hut, counts the crowd out loud from the corner flag at every game. (beat) That Saturday he reached two hundred and fourteen, and that figure included the dog.
NILAIf I were the dog, I would want a season ticket of my own.
TOM(dryly) The dog has a season ticket, and his name is Bruno.
NILA(laughing) Of course it is. And the match?
TOMIt was a local derby against Coldharbour, who are four miles down the road and sitting top of the table.
NILADid they bring away fans with them?
TOMThirty-one away fans in one corner with a drum, and if you only heard their chant you would think there were three hundred.
NILA(amused) So what happened on the pitch?
TOMColdharbour scored in the twelfth minute, and then absolutely nothing happened for an hour, which is entirely normal.
NILAAnd the moment? There is always a moment in your stories.
TOMThe moment is number twelve, and number twelve is a house rather than a player.
NILAGo on, explain that.
TOMBehind the hedge there's a garden belonging to Mrs Deane, who is eighty-one, and when the ball goes over she throws it back.
NILAEvery time, and for how long?
TOMShe has done that for thirty years, and if she ever stopped, the club would buy about forty new balls a season.
NILA(warmly) Somebody ought to put her face on the club badge.
TOMRay says exactly that, and he says that if he ever took over the club, her face would go straight onto the shirt.
NILASo what happened in the eighty-ninth minute?
TOMOur striker hit the ball so hard that it cleared the hedge, the shed and most of the garden behind it. (beat) Silence, and two hundred and fourteen people staring at a hedge, and then the ball came back over and a hand waved above the leaves.
NILA(delighted) They must have cheered her.
TOMThey cheered her for a full minute, far louder than they had cheered anything else all afternoon.
NILAAnd the football?
TOMFrom the throw-in we equalised, so it finished one-all, a draw that keeps us four points clear of relegation.
NILA(mock-serious) A famous victory.
TOMA famous draw. Ray took a hundred and eighty-six pounds in the tea hut, which is a club record.
NILAWho actually runs a grassroots club like that, day to day?
TOMEleven volunteers, and if you took those eleven people away there would be no club left by Christmas.
NILADo they ever sell out?
TOMOnce, at a cup game two winters ago, when the turnout was so big that Ray served tea in jam jars.
NILAThere's a phrase people use about football that I want you to unpack for us.
TOM"A game of two halves." Literally it means the ninety minutes are split into two pieces.
NILAAnd what do people actually mean when they say it?
TOMThey mean everything can still change, so if you are losing at half-time it does not mean you have lost.
NILAI like that a great deal.
TOMSo do I. If Marsh End disappeared tomorrow, this town would lose its Saturday, and that is why I walk down there.
NILAWhen's the next fixture?
TOMAt home, in two weeks, and Bruno and I will be sitting in exactly the same seats.
Something new about football, identity and the local club — this is not the story you just heard. Read it once straight through. Then read it again and underline every example of the second conditional you can find. There are at least twelve.
MATCH REPORT, Saturday. Two o'clock kick-off, 412 people, and a wind that came straight off the moor. If you only looked at the league table, you would expect a quiet afternoon: Coalfield Rovers had lost once all season. If you stood behind the goal for ten minutes, you would know that nobody had told Brindley Park.
Rovers scored first, in the nineteenth minute. Brindley Park's goalkeeper, Nadia Okonkwo, made three saves before half-time. If she played for a bigger club, she would have a nickname and a fan account by now. The equaliser came on the stroke of half-time, when Mia Threlfall hit a free kick so hard that the net moved twice.
The second half was mostly mud. If the pitch were flatter, both teams would play better football, but nobody in the crowd seemed to mind. Then, in the second minute of stoppage time, Threlfall crossed and Aisling Doyle headed the winner from three yards.
'If I told you I was calm, I would be lying,' said the Brindley Park manager, Cath Beaumont. 'We win next Saturday and we go up, and that is all there is to it. If we could sign one more defender, we would finish second rather than third.'
None of this was allowed for fifty years. In 1921 the Football Association banned women from the grounds of its member clubs, and the ban was not lifted until 1971. If that ban were still in place, none of these players would be standing here on a Saturday. England won the European Championship at Wembley in 2022, in front of 87,192 people.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY. Money is the argument you will hear in every tea hut in the country. Some people say that if the richest clubs shared more of their television money, small clubs would never worry about a roof over the stand. Others say that if grassroots clubs were run more carefully, they would not need the help at all. Nobody in the queue ever changes anybody's mind, and the tea goes cold.
A REPLY FROM THE STAND, by Erin, aged 14. I have had a season ticket here since I was nine, and it costs less than one afternoon at a Premier League ground. If I could choose any club in England, I would still choose this one. If my school ran a girls' team on Wednesdays, I would be in it. Come once. If you came, you would come again.
Use the second conditional to imagine something that is unlikely, or simply not true right now: if this were the case, that would happen. The If half uses a past form, but it is not about the past at all - it is a signal that you are imagining. The other half uses would plus the bare verb. With I, he, she and it, careful English uses were rather than was: if I were you. Swap in could or might when you want to sound less certain. And compare: if we win on Saturday, we will go up is a real plan; if we won the league, we would play at a higher level is a daydream.
| What it does | If half (past form) | Result half (would + bare verb) | Watch out |
|---|---|---|---|
| imagines something unlikely | If I had eighty pounds, | I would buy a season ticket tomorrow. | past form, but the meaning is now |
| imagines something untrue | If Bruno were a player, | he would be the captain. | were with I, he, she and it |
| gives advice politely | If I were you, | I would stand behind the goal. | If I were you is the normal way to advise |
| sounds less certain | If we signed a defender, | we could finish second. / we might win the cup. | could and might soften would |
| asks an imagined question | What would you do if the club closed? | (no comma when the If half comes second) | would appears once, not twice |
| compare with the first conditional | If we win on Saturday, we will go up. (real) | If we won the league, we would play higher up. (imagined) | will = likely; would = imagined |
Set A gives you everything. Set B takes away half the help. Set C takes away the rest. If you can only do A today, you have still done something real — do B tomorrow.
Notice the form. Read each sentence and write 1 if it is a first conditional (a real possibility) or 2 if it is a second conditional (imagined). Then copy the verb from each half.
Complete the gaps with one word or phrase from the word bank. There are eleven and only eight gaps, so three are left over. Every sentence here is imagined, not real.
Build the whole sentence and write it out. Item 1 is done for you as a model.
NILA(bright) Tom's club has two hundred and fourteen supporters and a woman behind a hedge, so let's put that in context.
TOMHow many clubs are there in England, from the Premier League down to non-league?
NILAThe English league system has about twenty levels, and it contains nearly five thousand three hundred separate clubs.
TOM(surprised) Five thousand three hundred, did you say?
NILAAround seven thousand teams once you count reserve sides, and the great majority of them are exactly like Marsh End.
TOMSo that is the misconception we need to correct this week.
NILAIt is. People abroad hear "English football" and picture the Premier League — twenty rich clubs, full stadiums and television cameras everywhere.
TOMAnd that turns out to be a very thin layer at the very top.
NILAExtremely thin. Underneath it sit thousands of grassroots clubs run by volunteers, and a great many of them lose money every year.
TOMHow old is the whole arrangement?
NILAOlder than most people assume, because the Football League was created in 1888, and it was the first football league anywhere in the world.
TOMEighteen eighty-eight, which is before most of the stadiums even existed.
NILAThe Premier League is the new thing by comparison, since it only broke away in 1992.
TOMSo the pyramid came first, and the money arrived a century later.
NILAExactly, and the whole pyramid is held together by promotion and relegation, which is the part visitors find strangest of all.
TOMExplain it as though I had never looked at a league table.
NILATake League Two, the fourth level. The top three clubs go up automatically, and the next four play off for a fourth place.
TOMAnd at the other end of the table?
NILAThe bottom two are relegated into the National League, and something very similar happens at every level all the way down.
TOMSo a village club could theoretically climb the entire thing.
NILATheoretically yes, because if a tiny club won its league every year it could keep climbing, and the door is never locked.
TOM(dry) I shall tell Ray that this evening.
NILA(laughing) Do it gently. The part immediately below League Two is called the National League System.
TOMAnd who looks after that?
NILAThe Football Association, and it covers the six levels underneath League Two, where the levels are called steps one to six.
TOMHow big is a typical division?
NILAAbout fifteen clubs on average across the pyramid, although the Premier League has twenty and the three divisions below it have twenty-four each.
TOM(dry) Which adds up to a great many Saturdays.
NILAA great many, and almost none are shown on television, not even the local derbies. There's one more thing, and it is genuinely new.
TOMGo on.
NILAEnglish football now has a regulator, because the Football Governance Act was passed in 2025 and the Independent Football Regulator was set up that September.
TOMWhat does it actually do in practice?
NILAIt licenses clubs in the top five divisions of the men's game in England, and it published its final licensing rules in July 2026.
TOMAnd why did people want a regulator in the first place?
NILABecause clubs had collapsed, supporters campaigned for years, and a fan-led review recommended it. The aim is clubs living within their means.
TOMSo if a club were badly run, the regulator could step in before it disappeared.
NILAThat is the idea, and it also exists to stop English clubs joining any breakaway competition.
TOMThere's another phrase worth having while we are here, which is "to move the goalposts".
NILAPlease unpack it.
TOMThe goalposts are the two posts at each end, so if somebody moves the goalposts they change the rules to suit themselves.
NILAAnd people say it about work far more often than about football.
NILA(laughing) Right, Talking Point.
NILA(directly to the listener) Is there a small club, team or group in your town that people feel they belong to? What would your town lose if it closed?
NILATry to use "would" in your answer, as in "if it closed, we would lose", and please say it out loud.
TOM(quietly) Two hundred and fourteen people would lose their Saturday afternoon.
NILA(warm) And Bruno. Next week we do the BBC, the licence fee, and why the British call a broadcaster "Auntie".
TOMI have opinions about all three of those things.
NILA(dry) You have opinions about everything, which is precisely why you are here.
Is there a small club, team or group in your town that people feel they belong to? What would your town lose if it closed?
One minute each, then swap. Use at least two words from the vocabulary bank.
The 18 words and phrases of this unit, each shown in the phrase it lives in. Learn the phrase, not the word on its own.
Speaking Part 3 — the collaborative task.
Six items, one from each of Units 2 to 7. They jump about on purpose, so read the label before you answer.
Learn these five words first. You will hear all of them in the story.
Predict: the story is called “The Set in the Corner”. What do you think happens? Write one sentence before you listen.
Play: vocabulary warm-up→NILA(introducing) Last Tuesday I finally did something I had wanted to do for months, which was to get Tom into a radio studio.
TOM(mock-grim) You did, and I have not entirely forgiven you for it.
NILAWe were running a phone-in about the licence fee, and I needed somebody who could remember television before the internet.
TOMWhich is a very polite way of saying that you needed somebody old.
NILA(laughing) It's a polite way of saying that I needed somebody useful.
TOMThe studio, which is smaller than my kitchen, has a light above the door that goes red when you are on air.
NILAAnd Tom stared at that light for ten minutes, because he thought it might explode.
TOMThen you asked me about our first television, and I told the story on air.
TOMWe had one set in the whole house, standing in the corner of the front room on a table my grandad had made.
NILAOne television for an entire household, which sounds impossible now.
TOMOne television and three channels, which these days sounds like something out of a museum.
NILAWho decided what the family watched?
TOMMy mother, whose word was final, and if she wanted to switch over she switched over and nobody argued about it.
NILA(amused) A very strong editorial policy.
TOMExtremely strong. At six o'clock we watched the news bulletin, and during the news you did not speak at all. (beat) My father, who talked cheerfully through everything else, went completely silent for a quarter of an hour.
NILAThis is the thing that surprises younger listeners, because everybody was watching the same programme at the same moment.
TOMThe same programme, on the same evening, in every house on the street, and you could hear the same laugh through two walls.
NILAAnd there was no catching up later.
TOMNone at all, so if you missed it you missed it, and on Monday you listened to people who hadn't.
NILANow tell them about the man with the van.
TOM(warming) His name was Mr Kelsall, he mended televisions, and he lived three streets away above a shop that sold radios.
NILAAnd one day something went wrong.
TOMSomething went wrong on a Sunday, which was the worst possible day, and the picture shrank into a little white line. (beat) My mother, who never asked anybody for anything, put her coat on and walked round to his house in the rain.
NILAAnd did he come out?
TOMMr Kelsall, who was in the middle of his dinner, came back with her carrying a wooden case of tools.
NILADid he manage to fix it?
TOMHe took the back off, and inside there were glass valves that glowed orange, and I had never seen inside a television before.
NILA(quietly) That is the picture I keep thinking about.
TOMHe replaced one valve, the picture came straight back, and my mother offered him money, which he refused. (beat) He said he'd take a cup of tea instead, and then he watched the end of the programme with us, still wearing his coat.
NILA(warm) That's a lovely thing to carry around with you.
TOMThat is the world I grew up in: one set, three channels, and a man who came out on a Sunday.
NILAThen we opened the phone lines, but first I had to read the rules out on air.
TOMYou said a licence covers live TV on any channel, and anything at all on iPlayer, but not on-demand films elsewhere.
NILAAnd our audience listened politely for roughly nine seconds.
TOM(dry) Some of them had tuned in specially in order to disagree with you.
NILA(laughing) They had. Then the calls started arriving.
TOMA woman called Ranjit rang in from Braunstone, who said her father used to mend televisions in Nairobi.
NILAAnd then a man called Gary rang, who was extremely cross about the licence fee.
TOMHe was, and I understood him perfectly well, even though I do not agree with him.
NILAWhat did you say to him?
TOMI said I don't love paying it. But I'd rather have a broadcaster which sells me nothing, and which must stay impartial in its coverage.
NILAAnd how did he take that?
TOMHe said, "That's fair enough," and put the phone down, which on a phone-in counts as a triumph. (beat) Afterwards, in the corridor, your producer told me I had a good radio voice, and I have been unbearable ever since.
Something new about the bbc and the british media — this is not the story you just heard. Read it once straight through. Then read it again and underline every example of relative clauses, defining and non-defining you can find. There are at least twelve.
OPINION, by Amara, Year 11. Two weeks ago a video on the app which everybody in my form uses said that our school was closing in July. By lunchtime the story, which was completely untrue, had reached four hundred people. So I set myself a rule: for seven days I would fact-check everything.
Day one was humiliating. The first story was a clip of a lion in a supermarket, which turned out to be three years old. The second was a headline about a school in Kent whose head teacher supposedly banned talking. The story existed. The ban did not. My cousin, who is eleven, believed both of them before breakfast.
By day three I had a system that anybody can copy. First, find the person who actually saw the thing. Second, look for a second source that is not simply repeating the first one. Third, check the date, which catches most people out.
Ofcom, which regulates broadcasting here, asked teenagers where they get their news. In its 2025 report, TikTok came first among twelve to fifteen-year-olds at 31 per cent, with YouTube next at 30 per cent. BBC One and Two, which our grandparents watched every evening, reached only 16 per cent. Yet the same teenagers said they trusted television news far more: 82 per cent, against 52 per cent for social media.
That gap is the interesting bit. We use the sources we trust least. And we have alternatives: Newsround, which began on the fourth of April 1972, is still made today.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY. All of this brings up the licence fee, which pays for the BBC. It went up to 180 pounds a year on the first of April 2026. Some people say it is a fair deal: a broadcaster which sells you nothing and which must stay impartial, for less than most streaming services. Others say that a household which never watches the BBC should not have to pay for it, and that a subscription would be fairer.
I still watch the app which started all this, because that is where my friends are. But I check the date now, and last Tuesday I was the person who told four hundred people that the school was not closing. My form tutor, who finds all of this very funny, has started calling me the newsroom.
A relative clause adds information about a noun without starting a new sentence. There are two kinds, and the commas tell you which is which. A defining clause says which one you mean, so the sentence collapses without it: the presenter who reads the news at six. No commas, and you may use that instead of who or which. A non-defining clause adds an extra fact about somebody we have already identified: John Craven, who presented the first Newsround in 1972, was picked after another reporter turned the job down. Commas both sides, like brackets - and never that. Use who for people, which for things, whose for belonging, and where for places.
| Defining (says which one) | Non-defining (adds an extra fact) | Watch out | |
|---|---|---|---|
| people | the woman who runs the tea hut | Mrs Deane, who is eighty-one, throws the ball back | who, not which, for people |
| things | a broadcaster which sells you nothing | the licence fee, which rose in April 2026, pays for the BBC | that is allowed on the left, never on the right |
| belonging | the school whose head teacher banned talking | Lewes, whose bonfire societies are famous, smells of smoke | whose works for people and things |
| places | the studio where we recorded the phone-in | Braunstone, where Ranjit grew up, is in Leicester | where replaces in which |
| commas | no commas at all | commas on both sides, like brackets | the commas change the meaning, not just the look |
| dropping the pronoun | the programme (which) I missed on Monday | never dropped: Newsround, which I watched, was short | you can only drop it in a defining clause, and only as the object |
Set A gives you everything. Set B takes away half the help. Set C takes away the rest. If you can only do A today, you have still done something real — do B tomorrow.
Notice the form. For each sentence, copy the relative clause and write D if it is defining (no commas, tells you which one) or N if it is non-defining (commas, an extra fact).
Complete each gap with one word from the word bank. There are eleven words and only eight gaps, so three are left over. Look at the commas before you choose.
Join each pair into one sentence with a relative clause. Decide each time whether you need commas. Item 1 is done for you as a model.
NILA(bright) Now the licence fee, which is one of the things visitors to Britain understand least of all.
TOMStart with the number, because that is what everybody wants first.
NILAFrom the first of April 2026 a colour TV licence costs one hundred and eighty pounds a year. A hundred and eighty.
TOMAnd what was it before that?
NILAA hundred and seventy-four pounds fifty, so it went up by five pounds fifty, which is about forty-six pence a month.
TOMRight, here comes the misconception, and it is the big one.
NILAGo on then, tell me what people say to you.
TOMThey say, "I only watch Netflix these days, so presumably I still need a licence for that."
NILA(firmly) No, and this is the rule that people get wrong more often than any other.
TOMSay it clearly, and say it twice if you have to.
NILAYou need one to watch live TV on any channel or service, and to watch anything at all on BBC iPlayer.
TOMAnd on-demand Netflix or Amazon?
NILANo licence is needed for those or for ordinary YouTube videos, but if you watch a programme live on any of them, then you do.
TOMSo it isn't really a tax on owning a television.
NILAIt really isn't, because it is a licence for live broadcasting and for the BBC's catch-up service, and one licence covers one household.
TOMAnd there are concessions for certain people.
NILAThere are: people over seventy-five who receive Pension Credit get a free licence, and blind or severely sight-impaired people pay a reduced fee.
TOMWhere does all of that money actually go?
NILAInto the BBC, a broadcaster which carries no advertising on its UK channels. The Welsh-language channel S4C receives around a hundred million pounds in 2026 and 2027.
TOMHow old is the BBC itself?
NILAThe British Broadcasting Company was formed on the eighteenth of October 1922, and it started broadcasting a few weeks after that.
TOMAnd where does the word "Corporation" come from?
NILAThe company was dissolved at the end of 1926. The Corporation, which was set up under a Royal Charter, began on the first of January 1927.
TOMSo the charter is nearly a hundred years old as an idea.
NILAAs an idea, yes, but each charter only runs for a fixed period, and the current one ends in 2027.
TOMAnd what happens after that?
NILAThe government is consulting now on how the BBC should be funded, and it has committed to the licence fee until this charter period ends.
TOMIs a subscription one of the options on the table?
NILAA subscription is one of the models being discussed, nothing at all has been decided, and people argue about it very fiercely.
TOMOn your phone-in, did anybody switch over halfway through?
NILANobody did, and the presenter after me said her bulletin had never taken so many calls.
TOMWhat about the audience? Is it still a large one?
NILALarger than most Britons realise, because in 2026 the BBC reported reaching five hundred and two million people every week worldwide.
TOMWorldwide, rather than simply here.
NILAWorldwide, and the World Service reports in forty-two languages. Forty-two.
TOMWhich brings us neatly to the nickname, because people call it "Auntie".
NILAWhere on earth does that come from?
TOMIt's an old joke, because people said the BBC behaved like an aunt. A bit strict, a bit careful, always telling you what was good for you.
NILA(laughing) Is it affectionate, or is it rude?
TOMBoth at the same time, which is very British indeed, and there's another phrase worth having: "take it with a pinch of salt."
NILAUnpack that one for us.
TOMIf you take something with a pinch of salt, you don't believe all of it, so you listen carefully and then go and check.
NILAWhich is decent advice about any news coverage, however impartial it claims to be.
TOMAny news, anywhere, and that most certainly includes this programme.
NILA(dry) Especially this programme. Talking Point.
NILA(directly to the listener) In your country, who pays for the news — the government, advertising, or the public? And do you trust what you hear?
NILATwo sentences will do, and please say them out loud rather than inside your head.
TOMAnd be honest, because nobody is marking it.
NILANext week: four nations, one passport, and a question that a man on my coach once asked me.
TOM(correcting, dry) My coach.
NILA(laughing) Your coach.
In your country, who pays for the news — the government, advertising, or the public? And do you trust what you hear?
One minute each, then swap. Use at least two words from the vocabulary bank.
The 18 words and phrases of this unit, each shown in the phrase it lives in. Learn the phrase, not the word on its own.
Reading Part 4 — the gapped text. Relative clauses and reference words are how you solve it.
Six items, one from each of Units 3 to 8. They jump about on purpose, so read the label before you answer.
| Seats in the three devolved legislatures | members |
|---|---|
| Scottish Parliament | 129 |
| Senedd Cymru | 96 |
| NI Assembly | 90 |
Learn these five words first. You will hear all of them in the story.
Predict: the story is called “Four Circles on a Window”. What do you think happens? Write one sentence before you listen.
Play: vocabulary warm-up→TOM(warm) Three years ago I was asked to help with a coach trip: eleven days, four nations, and a driver who was not me.
NILAWho was on board?
TOMThirty-one passengers, most of them British and six from other countries, including a man called Marek from Gdansk. G-D-A-N-S-K.
TOMWe left London on the Monday and crossed into Wales that afternoon, and nobody checks you, because there is no barrier at the border.
NILAPeople are often genuinely surprised by that.
TOMVery surprised, because the only sign that anything has changed is the road signs, which are suddenly written in two languages.
NILAWelsh on top, in many places.
TOMWelsh on top and English underneath, and Marek asked me why, so I told him the language is protected by law there.
NILAWhere did you stop that night?
TOMCardiff, which is the Welsh capital, and that is where the Senedd sits — the Welsh parliament, which was set up in 1999.
NILAAnd then north into Scotland.
TOMNorth for two days and then over the border, and in Scotland the first thing that confused everybody was the money.
NILA(laughing) The banknotes.
TOMSome banks in Scotland are allowed to print their own notes, and so are some banks in Northern Ireland, so the change looks different.
NILAEdinburgh next, presumably.
TOMEdinburgh, where the Scottish Parliament sits, which was also set up in 1999, and before that laws for Scotland were made only in London.
NILAAnd schools and hospitals?
TOMHealth and education in Scotland are run from Edinburgh now rather than London, because those powers were handed over and are devolved.
NILAThat is devolution in a single sentence.
TOMThat is devolution in a single sentence, and then we took the ferry across to Belfast.
NILAHow was the crossing?
TOM(dry) The crossing was described in the brochure as scenic, and it was described by three passengers as something I won't repeat.
NILA(laughing) Rough, then.
TOMRough, but we got there, and Belfast in the sunshine is a genuinely fine city.
NILADid you get to Stormont?
TOMWe drove past it, and that is where the Northern Ireland Assembly sits, on a hill above the city.
NILAAnd I imagine Marek noticed the signs again.
TOMHe noticed everything, and he said some street signs in Belfast were bilingual too, before asking me about identity.
NILASo when does the moment arrive?
TOMOn the last morning, on the way to the airport, when Marek stood up at the front and said he had a question.
NILAWhich was?
TOM"Please. Is England the same as Britain, or not? I have been here eleven days and I am more confused than when I arrived."
NILA(delighted) That is a brilliant question.
TOMA brilliant question, which was asked so politely that nobody laughed, and then I did something I am still quite pleased about.
NILAWhich was?
TOMThe window was covered in condensation, because it was November, so I drew four circles on the glass with my finger.
NILAFour circles for four nations.
TOMEngland, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and then I drew a bigger line round the first three and said, "That is Great Britain, an island."
NILAAnd the fourth circle?
TOMI drew a line round all four and said, "That is the United Kingdom, a country which is made up of four nations."
NILADid it actually work?
TOMYou could hear it work, because thirty-one people went completely quiet and then started talking all at once.
NILA(laughing) And what did Marek do?
TOMHe photographed my four circles, and then he said, "So the flag. Where is Wales?"
NILA(grinning) Oh, he was good.
TOMHe was very good, and I had to tell him that Wales is not shown on the Union flag, which is a fair complaint.
NILAHow did the trip end?
TOMHe shook my hand at the airport, said he would say "the UK" from now on, and then asked me which one I was.
NILAAnd what did you say?
TOM(beat) I said, "London," which is not one of the four, and he told me firmly that I was cheating.
NILA(warmly) He wasn't wrong about that.
TOMHe was not wrong at all, but everybody laughed, and the condensation had gone by then anyway.
Something new about four nations, one kingdom — this is not the story you just heard. Read it once straight through. Then read it again and underline every example of the passive, present and past simple you can find. There are at least twelve.
The United Kingdom is made up of four nations, and each of them has a highest mountain. Three of those are climbed together in the National Three Peaks Challenge, usually inside a day. When Slieve Donard is added, the walk is called the Four Peaks.
SCOTLAND: BEN NEVIS, 1,345 METRES. The highest ground in the UK is found above Fort William, and it is climbed by more than 150,000 people a year. In 2000 the summit and the land around it were bought by the John Muir Trust. Most walkers take the Pony Track, which was built for supply ponies. The path is repaired by rangers, because it is worn away every summer.
ENGLAND: SCAFELL PIKE, 978 METRES. The summit was given to the National Trust by Lord Leconfield after the First World War. In 1921 a plaque was unveiled on the cairn. It is dedicated to the men of the Lake District who died in that war. It is read by walkers who never knew it was there.
WALES: YR WYDDFA, 1,085 METRES. Wales is the only one of the four where the summit can be reached by train. The railway was opened in 1896, and almost eight kilometres of track were laid up the mountain. The Welsh names Yr Wyddfa and Eryri were adopted by the national park authority in 2022.
NORTHERN IRELAND: SLIEVE DONARD, 850 METRES. Slieve Donard rises straight out of the sea at Newcastle, County Down. From the top you follow the Mourne Wall, which was built between 1904 and 1922 by the Belfast Water Commissioners. It protected the water that was collected for the city. It is twenty-two miles long and it was made from local granite. Every stone was carried into place by hand.
The four nations are not run in the same way. Health, education, transport and the environment are run by the devolved governments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast. Defence, foreign affairs and immigration are reserved to the UK Parliament in London.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY. Ask about identity and you will get four answers. In Scotland many people describe themselves as Scottish rather than British, and others say both. In Wales many feel strongly Welsh and comfortably British at once. At the 2021 census 538,000 people said they could speak Welsh, about 17.8 per cent. In Northern Ireland some call themselves British, some Irish and some Northern Irish. On the census form more than one box can be ticked, which tells you a great deal.
Use the passive when the thing that happens matters more than the person who does it. In an active sentence you start with the doer: the Belfast Water Commissioners built the wall. In a passive one you start with the thing: the wall was built. Build it with the right form of be plus the third form of the verb - am, is or are for the present, was or were for the past. If you want to name the doer, add by at the end; if nobody needs to know, or everybody already knows, leave it out. This is why the passive turns up constantly in guidebooks, news and school textbooks.
| Active | Passive | Watch out | |
|---|---|---|---|
| present, one thing | A charity looks after the summit. | The summit is looked after by a charity. | is + third form |
| present, more than one | Volunteers repair the paths. | The paths are repaired by volunteers. | are + third form |
| past, one thing | They opened the railway in 1896. | The railway was opened in 1896. | was + third form; no by needed here |
| past, more than one | Workers laid eight kilometres of track. | Eight kilometres of track were laid. | were + third form |
| negative | Wales does not appear on the Union flag. | Wales is not shown on the Union flag. | not goes after is, are, was or were |
| question | When did they set up the Senedd? | When was the Senedd set up? | was comes before the subject |
Set A gives you everything. Set B takes away half the help. Set C takes away the rest. If you can only do A today, you have still done something real — do B tomorrow.
Notice the form. Write A if the sentence is active or P if it is passive. For every passive one, copy the two words that make it (the part of be plus the third form).
Complete the gaps with one word from the word bank. There are eleven words and only eight gaps, so three are left over.
Turn each active sentence into a passive one. Leave out the doer where nobody needs to know it. Item 1 is done for you as a model.
NILA(bright) Let's start where Tom's window drawing started, because this is the misconception of the entire series.
TOMEngland is not Britain.
NILAEngland is not Britain, and Britain is not the United Kingdom, yet people use all three words as though they meant the same thing.
TOMSay it slowly, for anybody who is taking notes.
NILAGreat Britain is the island that holds England, Scotland and Wales, and the United Kingdom is those three plus Northern Ireland.
TOMFour nations inside one state.
NILAFour nations inside one state, and the UK reached an estimated sixty-nine point three million people in mid-2024.
TOMStart with Scotland.
NILAThe Scottish Parliament has a hundred and twenty-nine members, elected by a mixed system of seventy-three constituencies plus fifty-six regional seats.
TOMAnd Wales has just changed, hasn't it?
NILAWales changed this year, because the Senedd was made bigger at the election on the seventh of May 2026, going from sixty members to ninety-six.
TOMAnd Northern Ireland?
NILAThe Assembly has ninety members, five from each of eighteen constituencies, and it was created in 1998 after the Belfast, or Good Friday, Agreement.
TOMAnd it works quite differently from the other two.
NILAVery differently, because power is shared. The First Minister and deputy First Minister have equal powers, and neither can hold office without the other.
TOMAnd it has not always been sitting.
NILAIt hasn't, and power-sharing was most recently restored in February 2024, after a gap of about two years.
TOMSo what is actually devolved, in ordinary everyday terms?
NILABroadly, health, education, transport and the environment are run by the devolved governments, and policing and justice are devolved in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
TOMAnd what stays in London?
NILADefence, foreign affairs, immigration and the currency are all reserved to the UK Parliament, and income tax is reserved in Northern Ireland.
TOMAlthough not in Scotland and Wales.
NILAIncome tax is devolved to different degrees in Scotland and Wales, which tells you how untidy the whole arrangement really is.
TOMAnd England itself?
NILAEngland has no parliament of its own, so laws for England are made at Westminster by MPs from right across the UK.
TOMWhich some people in England consider unfair.
NILASome do, others never think about it, and that brings us to the part we have to handle carefully.
TOMIdentity.
NILAIdentity. We are not here to tell you who is right, only to tell you what people say about themselves.
TOMGo on then, start with Scotland.
NILAIn Scotland many people describe themselves as Scottish rather than British, others say both, and opinion on independence has been closely divided for years.
TOMAnd Wales?
NILAIn Wales many people feel strongly Welsh and comfortably British at the same time, and the language is a large part of that.
TOMGive me the numbers.
NILAAt the 2021 census, five hundred and thirty-eight thousand people said they could speak Welsh, which was about seventeen point eight per cent.
TOMAnd there is a target, isn't there?
NILAThe Welsh Government wants a million Welsh speakers by 2050, under a plan called Cymraeg 2050.
TOMWhat about the other languages?
NILAScottish Gaelic and Irish are minority languages which have both been given legal protection, though Welsh has far more speakers.
TOMAnd the census asks people what they feel themselves to be?
NILAIt asks about national identity, and people are allowed to tick more than one box. Northern Ireland is the most complicated case of all.
TOMExplain that carefully.
NILASome people there describe themselves as British, some as Irish and some as Northern Irish, and many hold two passports. All those answers are ordinary.
TOMThere is a phrase for this, which is "a different kettle of fish".
NILAUnpack it for us.
TOMIf something is a different kettle of fish, it is a completely separate matter, and you cannot judge it by the same rules.
NILAWhich is exactly right for the four nations.
TOMSame island, different kettles.
NILA(laughing) Talking Point.
NILA(directly to the listener) Is your country made up of different nations or regions? Do they have their own languages or parliaments, and what are they called?
NILATry using a passive in your answer, such as "schools are run by", and say it out loud.
TOMNext week is the last one: bonfires, carnival, Eid, and a field in Somerset with nobody standing in it.
NILA(intrigued) Nobody at all?
TOMNobody at all, and I shall explain exactly why.
Is your country made up of different nations or regions? Do they have their own languages or parliaments, and what are they called?
One minute each, then swap. Use at least two words from the vocabulary bank.
The 18 words and phrases of this unit, each shown in the phrase it lives in. Learn the phrase, not the word on its own.
Listening Part 3 and Reading Part 6 — the gap fill and the open cloze.
Six items, one from each of Units 4 to 9. They jump about on purpose, so read the label before you answer.
Learn these five words first. You will hear all of them in the story.
Predict: the story is called “The Tea Urn and the Four Diaries”. What do you think happens? Write one sentence before you listen.
Play: vocabulary warm-up→TOM(warm) Two Saturdays ago I was put in charge of a tea urn, and I want to be clear that I did not volunteer.
NILA(laughing) How did that happen, then?
TOMOur street association puts on a summer fun day in the park. Somebody dropped out on the Friday night, so they rang me at nine.
NILAWhat was the turnout like?
TOMBetter than anybody expected, because about four hundred people came, and for our small park that counts as a crowd.
NILAAnd you stood behind a stall for the entire afternoon.
TOMThe entire afternoon, and because I could not move, people came to me. Four of them told me something I have thought about ever since.
NILAStart with the first one.
TOMMrs Bello, who lives at the end of my road, said that Carnival was the only weekend of the year she refuses to work.
NILANotting Hill.
TOMNotting Hill, and she told me she had danced behind the same float since 1994, and that her sister makes all the costumes.
NILADid she ask you anything?
TOMShe asked me whether I had ever stood right beside a proper sound system, and I said I had driven a bus past one.
NILA(laughing) Which she told you did not count.
TOMWhich she told me firmly did not count, and then Sam came over, who is nineteen and works in the bike shop.
NILAAnd what was his festival?
TOMHe said he had gone to Lewes every November since he was nine years old, and that nowhere else compares with it.
NILALewes means Bonfire Night.
TOMBonfire Night, and he told me there are processions all evening and thousands of burning torches carried through the streets.
NILADid he say why Lewes in particular?
TOMHe said the town has its own bonfire societies, and that others travel in from across Sussex. He also said the place smells of smoke for a week.
NILAAnd the third person?
TOMYusuf, who brought me a box of dates from his mother, and who told me that Eid had come in March this year.
NILAEid al-Fitr, at the end of Ramadan.
TOMThat's the one, and he said the family had prayed outdoors in a park with hundreds of people that morning.
NILADid he explain the fasting?
TOMHe explained that they break the fast together every evening for a month, and that the last night is the strangest of all.
NILAWhy the strangest?
TOMBecause nobody knows the date for certain until somebody has seen the moon, so he said his mother keeps two sets of food ready.
NILAAnd the fourth?
TOMKelly, from number forty, who asked me whether I had heard that there is no Glastonbury at all this year.
NILAA fallow year.
TOMA fallow year. She explained that the festival stops every few years so the land can rest, because it is a working dairy farm.
NILAI take it she was not pleased about it.
TOMShe was very upset indeed. She said she had checked the line-up out of habit and then had to remind herself there wasn't one.
NILA(sympathetic) That's oddly sad.
TOMShe told me she had booked a week in Wales instead, and that it would certainly not be the same thing.
NILADid anybody mention Diwali?
TOMKelly's neighbour did, on her way past the stall, and she said her family put paper lanterns in the window every year.
NILA(warm) And the firework display?
TOMShe told me that in Leicester there is a proper one, and that I really ought to come, and I said I would.
NILASo that is four people and four festivals.
TOMFour people, four festivals and one tea urn, and then something happened at about four o'clock that I liked very much.
NILATell me.
TOMMrs Bello went home and came back carrying a steel pan from her steel band, just the one, and set it up beside my stall.
NILA(delighted) In the middle of the park?
TOMIn the middle of the park, where Yusuf's dates went round, Sam found a speaker, and Kelly sang something nobody else knew.
NILAAnd the tea?
TOM(dry) The tea sold out at twenty past four, after exactly two hundred and six cups.
NILA(laughing) And what did you do when you got home?
TOMI wrote four dates in my diary, and that is the whole story.
Something new about old traditions and new ones — this is not the story you just heard. Read it once straight through. Then read it again and underline every example of reported speech you can find. There are at least twelve.
12 SEPTEMBER. Miss Prentice told us that our tutor group project was a festival diary. She said that we had to write one entry a month. She told me not to choose the same festival twice. When I asked her whether Christmas counted, she said that of course it did.
5 NOVEMBER. Bonfire Night. Sam told me that he went to Lewes in Sussex every year, and that thousands of burning torches were carried through the streets there. He said the whole town smelled of smoke for a week afterwards.
8 NOVEMBER. Diwali. My cousin rang from Leicester and said that the Wheel of Light on Belgrave Road had been switched on again. She explained that the main celebration was in a park this year, with dance, music and a funfair. She warned me that there would be no public firework display this time.
25 JANUARY. Burns Night. Gran said that Robert Burns was born on this day in 1759. She told us that his poems are read aloud all over the world every January. She asked me whether I wanted to try the haggis. I said I did. I have thought about that ever since.
9 FEBRUARY, 1 MARCH, 9 MARCH. Dad said that Easter was early, so Pancake Day arrived on the ninth of February. Yusuf told me that Ramadan had begun the day before, and that his family broke the fast together every evening. On the first of March, Mrs Owen told the class that St David was the patron saint of Wales. Yusuf said that the date of Eid was never certain until somebody saw the moon, so his mother cooked for two nights.
WHAT PEOPLE SAY. Some people at school said that if the calendar included Eid and Diwali as holidays, every family would be treated equally. Others said that schools cannot close for every festival in a country this mixed, and that families should be allowed to take the day. Miss Prentice said that our job was to report honestly what people said.
24 JUNE and 30 AUGUST. Kelly next door told me that Glastonbury was back after its fallow year, and she said she would watch it on television. Then Mrs Bello asked me whether I had ever been to Notting Hill Carnival, on the August bank holiday. She told me that her sister made the costumes, and that I would hear the sound systems long before I saw them. Nine festivals, one notebook, and Miss Prentice says I still cannot spell Hogmanay.
Reported speech is how you tell somebody what another person said, without using their exact words. Three things usually change. The tense moves one step back: present becomes past, past becomes past perfect, will becomes would. The person words change to fit your point of view: I becomes he or she, my becomes his or her. And time and place words shift too: today becomes that day, here becomes there. Use said for the words and told plus a person for who heard them: he said that, he told me that. For questions, use asked and put the words back in normal order, with no do or did. For orders, use told somebody to do or not to do something.
| Type | Actual words | Reported | Watch out |
|---|---|---|---|
| a statement, present | 'I go to Lewes every year.' | He said that he went to Lewes every year. | present moves back to past |
| a statement, past | 'I danced behind that float.' | She said that she had danced behind that float. | past moves back to past perfect |
| a plan with will | 'I will come next year.' | She said that she would come the following year. | will becomes would |
| a yes / no question | 'Have you ever been to Carnival?' | She asked me whether I had ever been to Carnival. | asked + if or whether, and no question mark |
| a wh- question | 'Where do you live?' | He asked me where I lived. | no do or did, and normal word order |
| an order or a request | 'Don't choose the same festival twice.' | She told me not to choose the same festival twice. | told + person + (not) to + verb |
Set A gives you everything. Set B takes away half the help. Set C takes away the rest. If you can only do A today, you have still done something real — do B tomorrow.
Notice the form. Write S if the sentence reports a statement, Q if it reports a question, or O if it reports an order or a request. Then copy the reporting verb.
Complete the gaps with one word from the word bank. There are eleven words and only eight gaps, so three are left over.
Report each one. Change the tense, the person words and the time words where you need to. Item 1 is done for you as a model.
NILA(bright) It is the last unit, so let's do Tom's four dates properly, with facts a learner can actually use.
TOMStart with the oldest one.
NILABonfire Night, the fifth of November, remembers the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when a group tried to blow up Parliament and Guy Fawkes was caught.
TOMAnd this year it falls on a Thursday.
NILAThe fifth of November 2026 is a Thursday, and most towns put on a public firework display and a procession rather than a garden bonfire.
TOMAnd Sam's town is the famous one.
NILALewes, in East Sussex, is the biggest of all. Six local bonfire societies take part, and roughly twenty-five to thirty more travel in.
TOMThere is a second part of the Lewes story, isn't there?
NILAThere is, and it is older and darker. Seventeen Protestants were burned in Lewes between 1555 and 1557, and seventeen crosses are carried in their memory.
TOMRight, tell me about Carnival.
NILANotting Hill Carnival happens over the August bank holiday weekend, and this year the steel band competition takes place on Saturday the twenty-ninth of August.
TOMAnd that day is ticketed.
NILAThat day is ticketed, while Sunday the thirtieth is Families and Children's Day and Monday the thirty-first is the adults' parade, both of them free.
TOMHow big does it get?
NILAOver a million visitors, and it is the largest street event in Europe, often described as second in size only to Rio.
TOM(mildly) Now here comes my misconception, and it is a very common one.
NILAWhich is?
TOMPeople assume that every British tradition is ancient — castles, kings and five hundred years of history behind everything.
NILA(firmly) Carnival isn't, because the first outdoor Notting Hill Carnival was in 1966, organised by a community worker called Rhaune Laslett.
TOMNineteen sixty-six, which is well within living memory.
NILAAnd before that, in 1959, Claudia Jones put on an indoor Caribbean carnival at St Pancras Town Hall. She is often called its mother.
TOMSo it is younger than I am.
NILA(laughing) By a few years, and Glastonbury is younger still, because that one started in 1970.
TOMWhich brings us neatly to my empty field.
NILA2026 is a fallow year, so there is no festival this summer, and the land at Worthy Farm is rested roughly every five years.
TOMWhen is the next one?
NILAThe next festival runs from the twenty-third to the twenty-seventh of June 2027, and around two hundred thousand people attend.
TOMAnd Yusuf's date?
NILAEid al-Fitr comes at the end of Ramadan. In 2026 it fell on the nineteenth or twentieth of March, depending on the sighting of the moon.
TOMWhich is precisely why his mother cooked twice.
NILAExactly why. Large open-air Eid prayers are now held in British parks, and Small Heath Park in Birmingham has hosted some of Europe's biggest.
TOMYou have not mentioned Diwali yet.
NILAI should, because Leicester, where my cousins live, holds what is often described as one of the largest Diwali celebrations outside India.
TOMAnd Glastonbury has headliners, presumably.
NILAIt does, they are announced months in advance, and as soon as the line-up appears the arguments begin immediately.
TOM(dry) Which is a tradition in its own right.
NILAThat is absolutely a tradition. So the British year is not one single thing at all.
TOMBonfires in November, carnival in August, Eid moving through the calendar, Diwali lanterns, Christmas, and a farm having a year off.
NILAThere is a phrase for a spoiled celebration, and I want you to unpack it.
TOM"To rain on someone's parade." If you rain on someone's parade, you spoil their happy moment, usually by saying something sensible at the wrong time.
NILA(laughing) Which in Britain the weather does quite literally.
TOMConstantly, but the parade goes ahead anyway, and that is really the point of all of it.
NILABeautifully said. Talking Point, and it is the last one.
NILA(directly to the listener) Which festival in your country would you take a visitor to? What would you tell them to wear, and what would you tell them to eat?
NILATry using reported speech, as in "I would tell them that", and please say your answer out loud.
TOM(warm) And that is ten units finished.
NILAThat is ten units, and thank you for staying with us all the way through.
TOMCome and find me on a Saturday, and I shall be the one counting the crowd.
Which festival in your country would you take a visitor to? What would you tell them to wear, and what would you tell them to eat?
One minute each, then swap. Use at least two words from the vocabulary bank.
The 18 words and phrases of this unit, each shown in the phrase it lives in. Learn the phrase, not the word on its own.
Writing Part 2 (the story) and Speaking Part 2 (the long turn).
Six items, one from each of Units 5 to 10. This is the last one, so take your time and check the label before you answer.
These 170 words and phrases are the taught vocabulary of the whole course. If you can use all of them, you are ready.