Test On Proverbs

A Test on English Proverbs

Q1. Below are sentences that are the paraphrasing of proverbs.

In each case, encircle the proverb that matches with the

paraphrasing best :( 2 marks for each item)

1. Usually people of the same type tend to be together.

(a) A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

(b) Birds of a feather flock together.

(c) Every bird likes his own nest best.

(d) Eagles catch no flies.

2. Sometimes things are not as valuable as they appear to be.

(a) All that glitters is not gold.

(b) Liberty is better than gold.

(c) Today gold, tomorrow dust.

(d) Where gold speaks every tongue is silent.

3. You must always try not to plan the successful results of something

until those results actually occur.

(a) Divide and rule.

(b) Life is not a bed of roses.

(c) Good finds good.

(d) Don't count your chickens before they are hatched.

4. One should take care of one's own family, friends, or fellow citizens

before helping other people.

(a) You reap what you sow.

(b) Nothing hurts like the truth.

(c) Charity begins at home.

(d) It takes two to tango.

5. Don't form an opinion about something based on appearance alone.

(a) We soon believe what we desire.

(b) Don't judge a book by its cover.

(c) Seeing is believing.

(d) Two wrongs don't make a right.

6. When there is evidence of a problem, then there probably is a

problem.

(a) Where there is smoke, there is fire.

(b) A burnt child dreads the fire.

(c) Of two evils choose the least.

(d) Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

24

7. People in general think that nothing can be accomplished without

effort.

(a) Look before you leap.

(b) No man can serve two masters.

(c) No pain, no gain.

(d) To run one's head against a stone wall.

8. When you hurry too much, you are likely to do a poor job, and you

may waste time doing it over.

(a) It is hard to please all parties.

(b) Necessity knows no law.

(c) Misfortunes never come alone.

(d) Haste makes waste.

9. When a group of people with the same goals work together, they can

accomplish more than individuals can do.

(a) Misery loves company.

(b) Too many cooks spoil the broth.

(c) In unity there is strength.

(d) Two's company, but three's a crowd.

10.It's better not to try to improve something that is already satisfactory.

(a) Make hay while the sun shines.

(b) Leave well enough alone.

(c) Strike while the iron is hot.

(d) Don't cry over split milk.

Q2 Complete the following: (3 marks for each item).

1. Actions speak-----------------------------------------------------.

2. If you can't beat them,---------------------------------------------.

3. --------------------------------, easy go.

4. You can't teach ---------------------------------new tricks.

5. A friend in need is-------------------------------------------------.

6. --------------------------------------is another man's poison.

7. A cat has--------------------------------------------------------.

8. Blood is-----------------------------------------------------------.

9. When the cat's away------------------------------------------------.

10.No news-----------------------------------------------

WORDS OF ADVICE FOR TEENAGERS

              We always hear from our teenagers, "What can we do? "Where can we go?"
             The answer is this: "Go home, mow the lawn, wash the windows, learn to cook, get a job, visit the sick, study your lessons and after you have finished read a book. Your town does not owe you recreational facilities and your parents don't owe you fun. The world does not owe you a living, you owe the world something. You owe it your time, energy and talent so that no one will be at war, in sickness and lonely again. In other words grow up, stop being a cry baby, get out of your dream world and develop a backbone not a wishbone. Start behaving like a responsible person. You are important and you are needed. It's too late to sit around and wait for somebody to do something someday. 

             Someday is now and that somebody is you!" 

                        Ամառային առաջադրանք

            Ընթերցանություն  11, 12-րդ դասարանցիների համար 

 http://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/study-break/easy-reading?utm_source=facebook-learnenglishteens&utm_medi

 

Ray Bradbury "A Story of Love"

A Story of Love

Ray Bradbury

---

That was the week Ann Taylor came to teach summer school at Green Town Central. It was the summer of her twenty-fourth birthday, and it was the summer when Bob Spaulding was just fourteen.

Everyone remembered Ann Taylor, for she was that teacher for whom all the children wanted to bring huge oranges or pink flowers, and for whom they rolled up the rustling green and yellow maps of the world without being asked. She was that woman who always seemed to be passing by on days when the shade was green under the tunnels of oaks and elms in the old town, her face shifting with the bright shadows as she walked, until it was all things to all people. She was the fine peaches of summer in the snow of winter, and she was cool milk for cereal on a hot early-June morning. Whenever you needed an opposite, Ann Taylor was there. And those rare few days in the world when the climate was balanced as fine as a maple leaf between winds that blew just right, those were the days like Ann Taylor, and should have been so named on the calendar.

As for Bob Spaulding, he was the cousin who walked alone through town on any October evening with a pack of leaves after him like a horde of Hallowe'en mice, or you would see him, like a slow white fish in spring in the tart waters of the Fox Hill Creek, baking brown with the shine of a chestnut to his face by autumn. Or you might hear his voice in those treetops where the wind entertained; dropping down hand by hand, there would come Bob Spaulding to sit alone and look at the world, and later you might see him on the lawn with the ants crawling over his books as he read through the long afternoons alone, or played himself a game of chess on Grandmother's porch, or picked out a solitary tune upon the black piano in the bay window. You never saw him with any other child.

That first morning, Miss Ann Taylor entered through the side door of the schoolroom and all of the children sat still in their seats as they saw her write her name on the board in a nice round lettering.

"My name is Ann Taylor," she said, quietly. "And I'm your new teacher."

The room seemed suddenly flooded with illumination, as if the roof had moved back; and the trees were full of singing birds. Bob Spaulding sat with a spitball he had just made, hidden in his hand. After a half hour of listening to Miss Taylor, he quietly let the spitball drop to the floor.

That day, after class, he brought in a bucket of water and a rag and began to wash the boards.

"What's this?" She turned to him from her desk, where she had been correcting spelling papers.

"The boards are kind of dirty," said Bob, at work.

"Yes. I know. Are you sure you want to clean them?"

"I suppose I should have asked permission," he said, halting uneasily.

"I think we can pretend you did," she replied, smiling, and at this smile he finished the boards in an amazing burst of speed and pounded the erasers so furiously that the air was full of snow, it seemed, outside the open window.

"Let's see," said Miss Taylor. "You're Bob Spaulding, aren't you?"

"Yes'm."

"Well, thank you, Bob."

"Could I do them every day?" he asked.

"Don't you think you should let the others try?"

"I'd like to do them," he said. "Every day."

"We'll try it for a while and see," she said.

He lingered.

"I think you'd better run on home," she said, finally.

"Good night." He walked slowly and was gone.

The next morning he happened by the place where she took board and room just as she was coming out to walk to school.

"Well, here I am," he said.

"And do you know," she said, "I'm not surprised."

They walked together.

"May I carry your books?" he asked.

"Why, thank you, Bob."

"It's nothing," he said, taking them.

They walked for a few minutes and he did not say a word. She glanced over and slightly down at him and saw how at ease he was and how happy he seemed, and she decided to let him break the silence, but he never did. When they reached the edge of the school ground he gave the books back to her. "I guess I better leave you here," he said. "The other kids wouldn't understand."

"I'm not sure I do, either, Bob," said Miss Taylor.

"Why we're friends," said Bob earnestly and with a great natural honesty.

"Bob --" she started to say.

"Yes'm?"

"Never mind." She walked away.

"I'll be in class," he said.

And he was in class, and he was there after school every night for the next two weeks, never saying a word, quietly washing the boards and cleaning the erasers and rolling up the maps while she worked at her papers, and there was that clock silence of four o'clock, the silence of the sun going down in the slow sky, the silence with the catlike sound of erasers patted together, and the drip of water from a moving sponge, and the rustle and turn of papers and the scratch of a pen, and perhaps the buzz of a fly banging with a tiny high anger against the tallest clear pane of window in the room. Sometimes the silence would go on this way until almost five, when Miss Taylor would find Bob Spaulding in the last seat of the room, sitting and looking at her silently, waiting for further orders.

"Well, it's time to go home," Miss Taylor would say, getting up.

"Yes'm."

And he would run to fetch her hat and coat. He would also lock the school-room door for her unless the janitor was coming in later. Then they would walk out of school and across the yard, which was empty, the janitor taking down the chain swings slowly on his stepladder, the sun behind the umbrella trees. They talked of all sorts of things.

"And what are you going to be, Bob, when you grow up?"

"A writer," he said.

"Oh, that's a big ambition: it takes a lot of work."

"I know, but I'm going to try," he said. "I've read a lot."

"Bob, haven't you anything to do after school?"

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, I hate to see you kept in so much, washing the boards."

"I like it," he said. "I never do what I don't like."

"But nevertheless."

"No, I've got to to that," he said. He thought for a while and said, "Do me a favour, Miss Taylor?"

"It all depends."

"I walk every Saturday from out around Buetrick Street along the creek to Lake Michigan. There's a lot of butterflies and crayfish and birds. Maybe you'd like to walk, too."

"Thank you," he said.

"Then you'll come?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Don't you think it'd be fun?"

"Yes, I'm sure of that, but I'm going to be busy."

He started to ask what, but stopped.

"I take along sandwiches," he said. "Ham-and-pickle ones. And orange pop and just walk along, taking my time. I get down to the lake about noon and walk back and get home about three o'clock. It makes a real fine day, and I wish you'd come. Do you collect butterflies? I have a big collection. We could start one for you."

"Thanks, Bob, but no, perhaps some other time."

He looked at her and said, "I shouldn't have asked you, should I?"

"You have every right to ask anything you want to," she said.

A few days later she found an old copy of `Great Expectations', which she no longer wanted, and gave it to Bob. He was very grateful and took it home and stayed up that night and read it through and talked about it the next morning. Each day now he met her just beyond sight of her boarding house and many days she would start to say, "Bob --" and tell him not to come to meet her any more, but she never finished saying it, and he talked with her about Dickens and Kipling and Poe and others, coming and going to school. She found a butterfly on her desk on Friday morning. She almost waved it away before she found it was dead and had been placed there while she was out of the room. She glanced at Bob over the heads of her other students, but he was looking at his book; not reading, just looking at it.

It was about this time that she found it impossible to call on Bob to recite in class. She would hover her pencil about his name and then call the next person up or down the list. Nor would she look at him while they were walking to or from school. But on several late afternoons as he moved his arm high on the blackboard, sponging away the arithmetic symbols, she found herself glancing over at him for a few seconds at a time before she returned to her papers.

And then on Saturday morning he was standing in the middle of the creek with his overalls rolled up to his knees, kneeling down to catch a crayfish under a rock, when he looked up and there on the edge of the running stream was Miss Ann Taylor.

"Well, here I am," she said, laughing.

"And do you know," he said, "I'm not surprised."

"Show me the crayfish and the butterflies," she said.

They walked down to the lake and sat on the sand with a warm wind blowing softly about them, fluttering her hair and the ruffle of her blouse, and he sat a few yards back from her and they ate the ham-and-pickle sandwiches and drank the orange pop solemnly.

"Gee, this is swell," he said. "This is the swellest time ever in my life."

"I didn't think I would ever come on a picnic like this," she said.

"With some kid," he said.

"I'm comfortable, however," she said.

"That's good news."

They said little else during the afternoon.

"This is all wrong," he said, later. "And I can't figure out why it should be. Just walking along and catching old butterflies and crayfish and eating sandwiches. But Mom and Dad'd rib the heck out of me if they knew, and the kids would, too. And the other teachers, I suppose, would laugh at you, wouldn't they?"

"I'm afraid so."

"I guess we better not do any more butterfly catching, then."

"I don't exactly understand how I came here at all," she said.

And the day was over.

That was about all there was to the meeting of Ann Taylor and Bob Spaulding, two or three monarch butterflies, a copy of Dickens, a dozen crayfish, four sandwiches and two bottles of Orange Crush. The next Monday, quite unexpectedly, though he waited a long time, Bob did not see Miss Taylor come out to walk to school, but discovered later that she had left earlier and was already at school. Also, Monday night, she left early, with a headache, and another teacher finished her last class. He walked by her boarding house but did not see her anywhere, and he was afraid to ring the bell and inquire.

On Tuesday night after school they were both in the silent room again, he sponging the board contentedly, as if this time might go on forever, and she seated, working on her papers as if she, too, would be in this room and this particular peace and happiness forever, when suddenly the courthouse clock struck. It was a block away and its great bronze boom shuddered one's body and made the ash of time shake away off your bones and slide through your blood, making you seem older by the minute. Stunned by that clock, you could not but sense the crashing flow of time, and as the clock said five o'clock, Miss Taylor suddenly looked up at it for a long time, and then she put down her pen.

"Bob," she said.

He turned, startled. Neither of them had spoken in the peaceful and good hour before.

"Will you come here?" she asked.

He put down the sponge slowly.

"Yes," he said.

"Bob, I want you to sit down."

"Yes'm."

She looked at him intently for a moment until he looked away. "Bob, I wonder if you know what I'm going to talk to you about. Do you know?"

"Yes."

"Maybe it'd be a good idea if you told me, first."

"About us," he said, at last.

"How old are you, Bob?"

"Going on fourteen."

"You're thirteen years old."

He winced. "Yes'm."

"And do you know how old I am?"

"Yes'm. I heard. Twenty-four."

"Twenty-four."

"I'll be twenty-four in ten years, almost," he said.

"But unfortunately you're not twenty-four now."

"No, but sometimes I feel twenty-four."

"Yes, and sometimes you almost act it."

"Do I, really!"

"Now sit still there, don't bound around, we've a lot to discuss. It's very important that we understand exactly what is happening, don't you agree?"

"Yes, I guess so."

"First, let's admit that we are the greatest and best friends in the world. Let's admit I have never had a student like you, nor have I had as much affection for any boy I've ever known." He flushed at this. She went on. "And let me speak for you -- you've found me to be the nicest teacher of all teachers you've ever known."

"Oh, more than that," he said.

"Perhaps more than that, but there are facts to be faced and an entire way of life to be considered. I've thought this over for a good many days, Bob. Don't think I've missed anything, or been unaware of my own feelings in the matter. Under any normal circumstances our friendship would be odd indeed. But then you are no ordinary boy. I know myself pretty well, I think, and I know I'm not sick, either mentally or physically, and that whatever has evolved here has been a true regard for your character and goodness, Bob; but those are not the things we consider in this world, Bob, unless they occur in a man of a certain age. I don't know if I'm saying this right."

"It's all right," he said. "It's just if I was ten years older and about fifteen inches taller it'd make all the difference, and that's silly," he said, "to go by how tall a person is."

"The world hasn't found it so."

"I'm not all the world," he protested.

"I know it seems foolish," she said. "When you feel very grown up and right and have nothing to be ashamed of. You have nothing at all to be ashamed of, Bob, remember that. You have been very honest and good, and I hope I have been, too."

"You have," he said.

"In an ideal climate, Bob, maybe someday they will be able to judge the oldness of a person's mind so accurately that they can say, `This is a man, though his body is only thirteen; by some miracle of circumstances and fortune, this is a man, with a man's recognition of responsibility and position and duty'; but until that day, Bob, I'm afraid we're going to have to go by ages and heights and the ordinary way in an ordinary world."

"I don't like that," he said.

"Perhaps I don't like it, either, but do you want to end up far unhappier than you are now? Do you want both of us to be unhappy? Which we certainly would be. There really is no way to do anything about us -- it is so strange even to try to talk about us."

"Yes'm."

"But at least we know all about us and the fact that we have been right and fair and good and there is nothing wrong with our knowing each other, nor did we ever intend that it should be, for we both understand how impossible it is, don't we?"

"Yes, I know. But I can't help it."

"Now we must decide what to do about it," she said. "Now only you and I know about this. Later, others might know. I can secure a transfer from this school to another one --"

"No!"

"Or I can have you transferred to another school."

"You don't have to do that," he said.

"Why?"

"We're moving. My folks and I, we're going to live in Madison. We're leaving next week."

"It has nothing to do with all this, has it?"

"No, no, everything's all right. It's just that my father has a new job there. It's only fifty miles away. I can see you, can't I, when I come to town?"

"Do you think that would be a good idea?"

"No, I guess not."

They sat awhile in the silent schoolroom.

"When did all of this happen?" he said, helplessly.

"I don't know," she said. "Nobody ever knows. They haven't known for thousands of years, and I don't think they ever will. People either like each other or don't, and sometimes two people like each other who shouldn't. I can't explain myself, and certainly you can't explain you."

"I guess I'd better get home," he said.

"You're not mad at me, are you?"

"Oh, gosh no, I could never be mad at you."

"There's one more thing. I want you to remember, there are compensations in life. There always are, or we wouldn't go on living. You don't feel well, now; neither do I. But something will happen to fix that. Do you believe that?"

"I'd like to."

"Well, it's true."

"If only," he said.

"What?"

"If only you'd wait for me," he blurted.

"Ten years?"

"I'd be twenty-four then."

"But I'd be thirty-four and another person entirely, perhaps. No, I don't think it can be done."

"Wouldn't you like it to be done?" he cried.

"Yes," she said quietly. "It's silly and it wouldn't work, but I would like it very much."

He sat there a long time.

"I'll never forget you," he said.

"It's nice for you to say that, even though it can't be true, because life isn't that way. You'll forget."

"I'll never forget. I'll find a way of never forgetting you," he said.

She got up and went to erase the boards.

"I'll help you," he said.

"No, no," she said, hastily. "You go on now, get home, and no more tending to the boards after school. I'll assign Helen Stevens to do it."

He left the school. Looking back, outside, he saw Miss Ann Taylor, for the last time, at the board, slowly washing out the chalked words, her hand moving up and down.

He moved away from the town the next week and was gone for sixteen years. Though he was only fifty miles away, he never got down to Green Town again until he was almost thirty and married, and then one spring they were driving through on their way to Chicago and stopped off for a day.

Bob left his wife at the hotel and walked around town and finally asked about Miss Ann Taylor, but no-one remembered at first, and then one of them remembered.

"Oh, yes, the pretty teacher. She died in 1936, not long after you left."

Had she ever married? No, come to think of it, she never had.

He walked out to the cemetery in the afternoon and found her stone, which said "Ann Taylor, born 1910, died 1936." And he thought, Twenty-six years old. Why I'm three years older than you are now, Miss Taylor.

Later in the day the people in the town saw Bob Spaulding's wife strolling to meet him under the elm trees and the oak trees, and they all turned to watch her pass, for her face shifted with bright shadows as she walked; she was the fine peaches of summer in the snow of winter, and she was cool milk for cereal on a hot early-summer morning. And this was one of those rare few days in time when the climate was balanced like a maple leaf between winds that blow just right, one of those days that should have been named, everyone agreed, after Robert Spaulding's wife.

Արտասահմանյան գրականություն նախագիծ

­­­­Analytical  Reading

Big Business

            Danny was standing on Manhattan Bridge. Suddenly he noticed a still burning cigarette-end on the sidewalk and rushed to save it; a few deep puffs and Denny sent little blue clouds of smoke into the mild air of the early spring.

            While enjoying the smoke he thought over his present situation. What’s the use of it all, he said to himself; here I am, a young man looking for a job of some kind or other – but not the ghost of chance of getting one.

            And I am certainly no fool! I am good at anything. I don’t mind what I do – and still – no luck… I must smoke dog-ends thrown away by others… Oh, boy! What does a man do to become a partner of Rockefeller? They started on a small scale, the same as I should like to, and I am quite sure they were not very particular about the way in which they made their money – and I shouldn't be either!

            And still there is only eight dollars and fifty cents in the torn pocket of my trousers. The devil knows how much longer I shall be able to make both ends meet on eight fifty! A week? A fortnight?  A month? ……Where, for Heaven’s sake, could I pick up a job?

            Now it is beginning to rain cats and dogs on top of all, and I have a hole in my shoes. A hole? It’s holes I have, nothing but holes and no shoes round them… Where can I hide from the rain? I’ll go to the post office for a while.

            By the time he reached the post office he was wet through. He stood in the main hall of the post office watching the people hurrying busily this way and that, and then picked up a letter somebody seemed to have left behind on one of the many writing desks. He read the first few lines hardly knowing what exactly he was reading; then something struck him. He read again and this time he gave a whistle of surprise. In no time he was out in the street again, looking back started to learn by heart the short note.

            “Dear friend,” it ran, “Yesterday shortly before I left I made up my mind to get rid of my old clothes. I’m on my way to San Francisco by now, but I just remembered something terrible: The night before I left I happened to meet Mr. Burbridge. He paid me a thousand dollar in settlement of an old debt. He gave me a one thousand dollar bill, and I put it into the inside pocket of the blue worsted suit I was wearing. But I have sold that suit along with the other old things. Do please go at once to the old clothes dealer, maybe he has not resold the suit yet…”

            One thousand dollars!  whispered Danny with excitement. That sum might be the making of me…Damn it, I am going to risk my last eight dollars!

·          

Black and Son, the secondhand gents’ clothiers, had their shop full of customers when Danny entered. Old man Black, his sleeves rolled up, wiping the sweat of his face, and after giving instructions to his employees who were busy carrying clothes about the shop, hurried towards Danny to serve him.

            “What can I do for you, sir?”

“Have you got anything in tweed?” asked Danny with seeming indifference.

            “Tweed, sir? Certainly, the very latest…My assistant will attend to you. John, run and bring the tweed suit we bought from Mr. Rockefeller the other day!”

            “Well – I think, I’d like something in navy blue.”

“I can let you have a suit like that, sir. Something quite exceptional,” exclaimed Mr. Black. “ I say, John, leave the tweed, bring the blue worsted one…Yes, the one we have from Gould… it will be just the right size.”

            “The blue lounge suit,” cried the attendant to a small boy. “Run, Ralph, be sharp! Get us the navy worsted lounge suit!”

            The boy hurried off, and a second later Danny was trying on a jacket that hung loosely from his narrow shoulders.

            “Fits you like a glove, sir!” exclaimed the attendant in admiration.” Carefully Danny passed his hand over the pockets of the jacket, his heart almost stopped beating. He had to clear his throat. Then he asked for the price and without bargaining he paid the price of seven and a half dollars and a quarter of an hour later he sat in Columbus Park with a large parcel in his hands. He couldn’t help feeling excited.

            Hurriedly he opened the parcel, took out the navy blue jacket in the right inside pocket of which he found a black leather wallet, opened it and began to count the money with shaking hands.

“Eleven thousand three hundred dollars!” he stammered. Eleven thousand three hundred dollars! Danny, old boy, that was big business!”

         When Mr. Black senior closed his shop long after nine p.m., his managing clerk said to him with a satisfied smile:

      «Well,sir, that was excellent business again today, wasn't it? We are getting rid of all our  old rubbish. We are doing a good turnover in those cheap suits!»

            « Well,» said Mr. Black smiling, «Did you manage to get a new supply  of those letters written?»

            «Certainly, Mr. Black, five hundred!»

            «All right!, tomorrow morning my son is going to lose them again at the post offices,the subway and the telephone boxes...... A capital idea, those one thousand dollar letters!»

            Mr. Black was searching about the shop for something.

            «Ralth!», he called, «bring me my jacket!»

            «Your jacket,sir?»

            «Yes, I hang it over the chair. The blue jacket!»

            «Oh, that one»,- stammered the boy and opened his eyes wide, «that one was sold this afternoon sir!»

BEING OLD

Being old is when you know all the answers, but nobody asks you the questions. (Anonymous)

Six months before she died, my grandmother moved into an old people's home and I visited her there when I was in Britain. She was sitting in the living room with about fifteen other residents, mostly women, half of them asleep. The room was clean and warm, with flowers and pictures, and the care assistants were kind and cheerful. 'The Weakest Link' was on the television ('to keep their brains active' one of the assistants said), and the only other sound was snoring and embarrassing digestive noises. People only moved when they needed to be helped to the bathroom. It was depressing. Gran talked a lot about how much she missed seeing her grandchildren (my nieces, aged 7 and 5), but I knew from my sister that they hated going to visit her there and, to be perfectly honest, I couldn't wait to get away myself.

So I was interested to read a newspaper article about a new concept in old people's homes in France. The idea is simple, but revolutionary: combining a residential home for the elderly with a nursery school in the same building. The children and the residents eat lunch together and share activities such as music, painting, gardening and caring for the pets which the residents are encouraged to keep. In the afternoons, the residents enjoy reading or telling stories to the children and, if a child is feeling sad or tired, there is always a kind lap to sit on and a cuddle. There are trips out and birthday parties too.

The advantages are enormous for everyone concerned. The children are happy because they get a lot more individual attention and respond well because someone has time for them. They also learn that old people are not different or frightening in any way. And of course, they see illness and death and learn to accept them. The residents are happy because they feel useful and needed. They are more active and more interested in life when the children are around and they take more interest in their appearance too. And the staff are happy because they see an improvement in the physical and psychological health of the residents and have an army of assistants to help with the children.

Nowadays there is less and less contact between the old and the young. There are many reasons for this, including the breakdown of the extended family, working parents with no time to care for ageing relations, families that have moved away and smaller flats with no room for grandparents. But the result is the same: increasing numbers of children without grandparents and old people who have no contact with children. And more old people who are lonely and feel useless, along with more and more families with young children who desperately need more support. It's a major problem in many societies.

That's why inter- generational programs, designed to bring the old and the young together, are growing in popularity all over the world, supported by UNESCO and other local and international organizations. Modern Western society has isolated people into age groups and now we need to rediscover what 'community' really means. And we can use the strengths of one generation to help another. Then perhaps getting old won't be such a depressing prospect after all.