Siptar

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I shifted uncomfortably inside my best suit and eased a finger inside the tight white
collar. It was hot in the little bus and I had taken a seat on the wrong side where the
summer sun beat on the windows. It was a strange outfit for the weather, but a few
miles ahead my future employer might be waiting for me and I had to make a good
impression.
There was a lotdepending on this interview. Many friends who had qualified with
me were unemployed or working in shops or as labourers in the shipyards. So many
that I had almost given up hope of any future for myself as a veterinary surgeon.
There were usually two or three jobs advertised in the Veterinary Record each
week and an average of eighty applicants for each one. It hadn’t seemed possible when
theletter came from Darrowby in Yorkshire. Mr S. Farnon would like to see me on the
Friday afternoon; I was to come to tea and, if we were suited to each other, I could stay
on as his assistant. Most young people emerging from the colleges after five years of
hard work were faced by a world unimpressed by their enthusiasm and bursting
line 15 knowledge. So I had grabbed the lifeline unbelievingly.The driver crashed his gears again as we went into another steep bend. We had
been climbing steadily now for the last fifteen miles or so, moving closer to the distant
blue of the Pennine Hills. I had never been in Yorkshire before, but the name had
always raised a picture of a region as heavy and unromantic as the pudding of the same
name; I was prepared for solid respectability, dullnessand a total lack of charm. But as
the bus made its way higher, I began to wonder. There were high grassy hills and wide
valleys. In the valley bottoms, rivers twisted among the trees and solid grey stone
farmhouses lay among islands of cultivated land which pushed up the wild, dark
hillsides.
Suddenly, I realised the bus was clattering along a narrow street which opened
onto a square where westopped. Above the window of a small grocer’s shop I read
‘Darrowby Co-operative Society’. We had arrived. I got out and stood beside my
battered suitcase, looking about me. There was something unusual and I didn’t know
what it was at first. Then it came to me. The other passengers had dispersed, the driver
had switched off the engine and there was not a sound or a movement anywhere. Theonly visible sign of life was a group of old men sitting round the clock tower in the
centre of the square, but they might have been carved of stone.
Darrowby didn’t get much space in the guidebooks, but where it was mentioned it
was described as a grey little town on the River Arrow with a market place and little of
interest except its two ancient bridges. But when you looked at it, its settingwas
beautiful. Everywhere from the windows of houses in Darrowby you could see the
hills. There was a clearness in the air, a sense of space and airiness that made me feel I
had left something behind. The pressure of the city, the noise, the smoke – already
they seemed to be falling away from me.
Trengate Street was a quiet road leading off the square and from there I had my
first sight ofSkeldale House. I knew it was the right place before I was near enough to
read S. Farnon, Veterinary Surgeon on the old-fashioned brass nameplate. I knew by
the ivy which grew untidily over the red brick, climbing up to the topmost windows. It
was what the letter had said – the only house with ivy; and this could be where I would
work for the first time as a veterinary surgeon. I rang thedoorbell.

1 As he travelled, the writer regretted his choice of
A seat.
B clothes.
C career.
D means of transport.

2 What had surprised the writer about the job?
A There had been no advertisement.
B He had been contacted by letter.
C There was an invitation to tea.
D He had been selected for interview.

3 The writer uses the phrase ‘I had grabbed the lifeline’ (line 15) to show that...