The Hardy Boys Mystery Stories 12 страница

Helen Keller

Life is not always easy. Sometimes it presents us with serious problems that make us sad and even depressed. When it comes to this, you may remember the example of Helen Keller, born in a small American town in 1880.

The illness struck Helen Keller when she was a baby and left her deaf and blind before she learned to speak. As a child Helen was wild and disobedient. She seemed not to understand what was going on in the world around her. In spite of Helen’s illness her parents decided that she should have some education and started looking for a teacher.

Helen Keller's new life began on a March day in 1887 when she was seven years old. On that day Anne Mansfield Sullivan, a 20-year-old graduate of the Perkins School, came to the town to be her teacher. From that day, the two of them – teacher and pupil – were inseparable.

Miss Sullivan began her first lesson by handing Helen a doll and pressing “d-o-l-l” into the child's hand. In this way she hoped to teach Helen to connect objects with letters. Helen quickly learned to form the letters correctly and in the correct order. In the days that followed, she learned to spell lots of different words.

Helen Keller was a talented pupil and quickly learnt how to read and write. She enjoyed reading books written for blind children. In 1890, when she was just 10, she decided to learn to speak. Somehow she had found out that a little deaf-blind girl in Norway managed to do it.

At first Helen had difficulty with speaking, but with the time and help from Anne she developed a clear voice. Later, she was able to speak in public for large crowds which came to her whenever she gave her lectures. There was usually a storm of applause after her every lecture.

After school Helen went to college and graduated it with honours. She got a Bachelor of Arts degree. Throughout those years and until her own death in 1936, Anne Sullivan was always by Helen's side. She pressed book after book and lecture after lecture into her pupil's hand.

One of Helen’s professors was so deeply impressed by her essays in English that he suggested the girl writing the story of her life. Helen followed the advice and wrote the book while still at college. It was a cheerful account of how a young girl was able to live a happy life in spite of her terrible misfortunes. Later she wrote several books more. In her books and lectures Helen did everything possible to help and encourage those who were blind. For the rest of her life, Helen Keller worked for improving education for the blind and deaf.

Helen Keller lived in many different places – Alabama; Cambridge and Wrentham, Massachusetts; Forest Hills, New York, but perhaps her favorite residence was the house in Easton, which she called “Arcan Ridge”. She moved to that white house in 1936, after her beloved teacher's death. And it was “Arcan Ridge” she called home for the rest of her life. She died in 1968.

Glastonbury Festival

Glastonbury Festival is the largest open air music and arts festival in the world. It became an example which other festivals followed. Of course, Glastonbury is best known for modern music, but its programme also includes dance, comedy, theatre, circus and other arts.

The festival organiser, Michael Eavis, was a common farmer. In 1970 he visited an open air concert which greatly impressed him. So he decided to organise a big festival outdoors in the same year. He knew, it wouldn’t bring any money, but it didn’t matter. At the first festival there were more than one thousand people. Each of them paid £1 for the ticket. The price also included free milk from the farm. Later on, the festival took place almost every year and grew in size and audience.

The festival takes place in southwest England on a farm. It's a beautiful and mystical place called the “Valley of Avalon”. It is surrounded with a lot of legends, symbols, myths, and religious traditions dating back many hundreds of years. Legends say that here King Arthur's sword was made and the king himself was buried there. No wonder that the main stage of the festival, Pyramid Stage, has the form of a pyramid. Many believe that this is a very powerful structure, which gets energy from the stars and gives it to people.

In many ways, Glastonbury is like a mix of different festivals, which take place in the countryside and last for a weekend. Each area of the Festival has its own character, its own fans and its own special attractions. For example, dance lovers go to the “Dance Village”. There is also a big cinema area, “Theatre and Circus”. Children can have fun in the “Kids’ Field”. Some people spend the whole weekend in their favourite area. However, most of them prefer walking about and trying lots of different things.

Most people who stay at Glastonbury Festival live in tents. There are lots of different camping areas, each one with its own atmosphere. You can choose where to stay: in a quiet place or a lively one. There are also places for families and disabled people. Anyway, you should remember to bring a tent with you. Of course, it's possible to rent one, but it's quite expensive.

Glastonbury Festival supports Greenpeace and has a number of programmes. There are hundreds of rubbish bins on the territory. All cans, glass, paper, electrical and electronic equipment, wood and waste are separated and recycled. Visitors are asked to clean after themselves and not to leave rubbish. The Festival supports those who come by public transport or by bicycle, not by car.

If you're thinking about visiting Glastonbury, you should book tickets in advance. Today an average ticket is about £200 for three days which is quite expensive. Nevertheless the tickets are sold out in two or three hours. So be quick to catch them. There are usually more people wishing to get to the festival than tickets. Registration for the 2013 festival began in June 2011.

“The 1900 House”

“The 1900 House” was a reality television programme in Britain. It took people back a hundred years to the time of Queen Victoria, when there were no computers, mobile phones or the Internet. The idea of the show was to give people an experience of living in the past.

A modern family, the Bowler family, spent three months living like people at the beginning of the 20^th century. There were the parents (Paul and Joyce) and their four children (three daughters and a son). The cameras recorded them every day. The house didn't have a telephone, a fridge, a TV set or even central heating. The Bowlers wore clothes from 1900 and ate the food that existed in England at that time. There wasn't much to choose from. The main dishes on the table were meat and fish, and the day usually started with a cup of tea and porridge.

The father of the family, Paul Bowler, still went to work but in an old-fashioned uniform. He couldn't read newspapers or use a computer. The mother, Joyce, became a housewife and stayed home. She did all the cleaning, washing and cooking. The children still went to school, but they changed their clothes on the way to and from school so their classmates wouldn’t know anything about this unusual project.

The Bowlers noticed that life at the beginning of the century was much slower. It was rather hard for them to get used to the new speed. For example, it took 28 minutes to boil water and make a cup of tea. And can you imagine cleaning the house without a vacuum cleaner or washing clothes without a washing machine? There wasn't any toothpaste or modern shampoo. Without central heating nobody thought about a warm bath or a shower in the morning. Toothbrushes were made of pig and horse hair. Toothpaste was expensive so most people cleaned their teeth using salt or soda. The children thought it was horrible.

11-year-old Hilary said: "The most difficult thing was finding entertainment. We couldn't go to the cinema or to a café. It was a new experience to be with the family for half a day or more. It was new and hard to be nice to each other all the time. But I really think we all became closer."

17-year-old Kathryn remembered that she couldn't wear any make-up. She had to wear a corset every day and had only three sets of clothes: one to wear every day, the second – to wear while cleaning, and the third was for special events, like celebrations.

When the show was over the Bowlers were asked: what did you miss most from the modern world? The father said it was a hot shower. The mother had longed to have a quick cup of tea. The daughters said it was the music, the hot water, shampoo and “normal sounds like the washing machine” which they missed. For the son it was pizza and the computer.

It's interesting that the family was allowed to keep anything they wanted after the project. Joyce took her corset and each of the children took something from the house to remind them of their experience.