People in Conversation – Scott-answers
1. . Scott is 23 years old. How old is his sister? She’s 21. (‘about two years in-between each child’)
2. What does Scott’s brother work as? He’s a travel agent.
3. Is Scott’s brother a homeowner? Yes. (‘and bought his own house’)
4. How far does Scott’s sister live from Scott’s brother? 1½ kilometres (Scott’s brother lives half a kilometre from his parents and Scott’s sister lives about a kilometre the other way from his parents.)
5. What did Scott’s sister do before the two brothers? She got married. (‘the first to get married’)
6. How old are Scott’s mum and dad at the moment? 59 (‘both sort of um, approaching 60 now’)
7. What had Scott’s parents never done until last year? They had never been overseas. (‘they had their first overseas trip last year’)
8. Who does Scott call regularly? his mother (‘I try to get on the phone to mum as often as I can’)
PART 2
1. Scott’s grandparents were still around when he was growing up. (T ‘certainly as a child I had four grandparents’)
2. Scott’s maternal grandfather was born in Scotland. (F ‘her dad was from, was from a Scottish background’ [i.e. his parents were Scottish but…] ‘certainly both my mother’s parents were born in Australia.’)
3. His mother’s father’s name doesn’t sound very Scottish. (F ‘her dad was from, was from a Scottish background, so his name was Fergus McAlpin. It doesn’t get much more Scottish than that.’)
4. Scott’s paternal grandfather came to Australia from England when he was a teenager. (T ‘my dad’s father was actually born in England. He moved to Australia when he was about 15.’)
5. Only one of Scott’s grandparents was born in England. (‘I’m lucky that my grandparent was born in England.’ singular, not plural)
6. Australian citizens don’t need a visa to live and work in the UK. (F ‘I’m lucky that my grandparent was born in England ‘cos that, that’s allowed me to get the ancestral visa to stay here.’)
7. Scott’s grandparents always used to make the children eat healthily. (F ‘they were typical grandparents… spoiling their grandchildren and taking them to McDonald’s at any opportunity.’)
8. Scott’s grandparents had their children quite late in life. (T ‘I guess they had their children reasonably late for their generation…’)
9. Scott’s grandparents all died within 10 years of each other. (F ‘And they all passed away within about four or five years of each other…’)
10. Scott is pleased that none of his grandparents had to spend years on their own. (T ‘And they all passed away within about four or five years of each other which um, in a way was, was really good ‘cos you can see that um, when one’s left for a long time they can tend to get quite lonely and so it wasn’t such a bad thing to see them all go off very happy and after a good life.’)