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Today, we will visit a little village on the south coast of England. Its name is Tyneham, and it is a “ghost village”. What does ‘ghost village’ mean? It means that the village is deserted, there is no-one there. Many of the houses, the church and the school are still standing, but no-one lives in Tyneham any more. If you believe in ghosts, perhaps you feel that the ghosts of the people who used to live there still haunt the village. It is a “ghost village”.

Tyneham is a very ancient place. People lived there in Roman times, and probably long before. For centuries, the people farmed the land and caught fish in the sea. In the 13th century, a stone church – St Mary’s church – was built, and in the middle of the 19th century the village got its own school. Tyneham lies in a very attractive part of England. Many of the other villages nearby have cafes, and souvenir shops and car-parks. They are crowded with visitors in the summer, and well-off people from London buy the pretty houses as weekend cottages. Why is Tyneham not like that?

During the Second World War, shortly before Christmas 1943, the people in Tyneham all received letters from the government. The army needed the land in Tyneham as a place to train soldiers. All the inhabitants had to leave the village in less than a month’s time. Of course, this would only be temporary. When the War was over, the people could return home.

But they never returned. After the War, the army decided that it still needed the land for training. They erected targets on the hillsides, and soldiers in tanks practised firing shells at them. Sometimes they missed the targets, and hit houses in Tyneham by mistake. The whole area around Tyneham was closed to the public. It was not safe to walk on the roads or the footpaths because of unexploded shells from the guns.

The people of Tyneham complained and pressed the government to let them return home. Tourists complained that they could not visit this beautiful area of England. The army took no notice, and in the 1960s even demolished the ancient manor house in Tyneham. Eventually, in 1975, the army – with great reluctance – agreed that people could visit Tyneham and the area around it at weekends and during the month of August.

So today, on days when the area is open, you can park your car at the car park at the top of the hill, and walk down to the old village. You can see the ruined houses, and visit a museum in the old church. You can walk down to the sea, to where the fishing boats used to be. You can see the village telephone box, which was erected only months before the villagers left – unfortunately, the telephone in it does not work! You can visit the old school. Inside, it is almost exactly as it was in the 1930s. The children’s books are still on the desks, and their names are on the pegs where they hung their coats. It is almost as if the children had just gone outside to play. A “ghost school”!

I do not know how many of the 252 people who left Tyneham in 1943 are still alive – probably not many. It is now very unlikely that they will ever return home – indeed, probably they no longer think of Tyneham as home. So Tyneham will be left as a place where the army can shoot its guns, where the wildlife can flourish, safe from people and modern agriculture, and where tourists can come for a glimpse of what life in rural England used to be like.

The last person to leave Tyneham left a note pinned to the door of the church. It read:

“Please treat the church and houses with care; we have given up our homes where many of us lived for generations to help win the war to keep men free. We shall return one day and thank you for treating the village kindly”.

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from www.listen-to-english.com

try the quiz at http://www.listen-to-english.com/quiz/offto.htm

In English, it is the little words that cause the problems. Big words – like “misappropriation” or “truthfulness” – are easy. If you do not understand what they mean, you can look them up in a dictionary. But little words – like “up”, “down”, “on” and “off” – are difficult because they have so many possible meanings. We often join these little words to a verb, to make a phrasal verb. There are hundreds of phrasal verbs in English. In spoken English, we use phrasal verbs all the time.

Today, we look at the little word “off”. If I say, “I am going off to work “ it means that I am leaving home to go to work. Very often we leave out the verb “go”, and we say simply, “I am off to work“, or “We are off to Paris at the weekend”, or “He is off to visit his mother“. And if I say “I am off work“, it means that I am not at work; perhaps I am ill, or I am taking a day’s holiday. “A day off“ means a day when I do not have to go to work. So you see, “off” can have the meaning “going away from somewhere”, or “not being at the place where I normally am”. There is a quiz on the website about sentences and expressions using the word “off”.

So now you will understand exactly what I mean when I say that my son is “off to University“. He has left home to go to University. About 40% of young people in England go to University, generally when they are 18 or 19 years old. Some young people stay at home and go to a University in their own town. But most want to be off – they want to leave home and go to a University where they can live independently. If they want to get as far away from their parents as possible, they choose a University like Exeter in the far south-west of England or Aberdeen in Scotland.

The University academic year starts at the end of September or the beginning of October. On the motorways, you can see cars loaded with personal possessions, computers, stereos, skateboards and bicycles and other things which a young student needs. In the car are Mum and Dad, and their son or daughter who is off to University in a distant part of the country.

When they arrive at the University, they find hundreds of similar families. All the car parks are full, and it takes half an hour to find a parking space. Probably the University has arranged a room for the new student in a Hall of Residence. So Mum and Dad and the new student set off to find the right room, and then to find the key to the room, and finally to carry all the student’s possessions from the car to the room. Then comes the difficult bit. Mum and Dad want to stay. They want to help their son or daughter to unpack; they want to meet other parents of new students; they want to explore the University. But the new student has other ideas. He or she wants the parents to go as soon as possible. University life cannot start while Mum and Dad are still there.

So Mum and Dad set off for home. The new student starts a new life of making new friends, going to student parties and (from time to time) going to lectures and doing some work. And Mum and Dad worry about whether the new student is all right – will he eat too much junk food? will he phone home sometimes to say that all is well? will he remember to change his socks? (The answers to these three questions are “yes”, “no” and “sometimes”).

Going off to University is an important step in a young person’s life. It marks the end of childhood and the beginning of adulthood. Mum and Dad know this, and when they return home they do something which they have wanted to do for years. They spend a whole day cleaning and tidying their son or daughter’s bedroom!

I must be off now. Goodbye!

Text and podcast from www.listen-to-english.com

Are you worth it?

 No, I won’t wake up. It isn’t worth it!

Today, we meet the English word “worth”, and a famous cosmetics company that tells us that we are “worth it”.

“Worth” means simply the value that something has. Sometimes we use it in a literal way, to mean “how much money would people pay?” But often we use it figuratively, to mean “how much time and effort and energy would people pay?” Here are some examples:

Kevin is, as I am sure you know, a fan of the loudest punk rock group in the world “Futile Vendetta”. He has all their records and CDs. His collection of records and CDs is worth about £300, which means that – if Kevin sold them – he might get £300 for them. But he is not going to sell them. They are worth much more than £300 to him.

Kevin’s friend George lives in a flat. George owns the flat – he does not rent it from a landlord. George wants to move to another flat, closer to his work. The first thing he does is to ask an estate agent to look at his flat and tell him how much it is worth – that is, how much somebody might pay for it. When he knows this, George can work out how much he can afford to pay for a new flat.

Last summer, Kevin and Joanne went for a holiday in the Lake District in the north-west of England. They climbed a mountain called Scafell Pike. Scafell Pike is less than 1,000 metres high, but it is still the highest mountain in England. It was a long climb. After about an hour, their legs were tired and their feet were sore. They were out of breath and it had started to rain. Their clothes were wet, and Kevin had water in his boots. Eventually, they reached the top. Suddenly, the sun broke through the clouds. They could see all the way to the sea, far away to the west and the south. They could see the other mountains around, and the valleys and lakes far below. It was magic. It was worth the aching legs and the wet clothes. Or, as we often say in English, “it was worth it”.

If you say that something is “worth it”, you mean that that thing has a bigger value than the money you paid, or the work you did, or the time you spent, or the emotional upset which you had, in order to get that thing. Here are some other things which are “worth it” (or “not worth it”):

Kevin’s football team, United, has paid £10 million for a new striker. The first time he played for United, he scored twice. He was worth it.

Joanne wants to see a new film. But the only cinema which is showing it is on the other side of town. It would take nearly an hour to get there. “Is it worth it?” wonders Joanne.

George’s Dad grows vegetables in his garden. It is hard work, but George’s Dad says that fresh, home-grown vegetables are worth it.

Jimmy and Carole, whom we met in an earlier podcast, and who were doing fine the last time we saw them, have had a row. Joanne finds Carole in tears. “Don’t get so upset,” says Joanne. “He’s not worth it.”

And finally, we come to the French cosmetics company L’Oreal. L’Oreal sells industrial chemicals that people put on their bodies to make themselves look younger or smell sweeter. Some of their products are quite expensive. But, as L’Oreal tells us in their advertisements on TV, “You’re worth it.” They mean, “You are wonderful and beautiful. You want to stay wonderful and beautiful. So, it is worth spending lots of money on our products, and worth spending time putting them on your face and taking them off afterwards. Trust L’Oreal. You are worth it.”

www.listen-to-english.com

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