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SPLITTING THE IMAGE
• When we were small my mother used to dress us in identical clothes. That was
bad enough. But when we went on our first camping trip with the scouts, she
went one better. We were only ten or so, and while all the other boys settled
down for the night in their sleeping bags, we were very embarrassed when
we had to snuggle inside a special double sleeping bag my mother had made
for us out of two blankets.
• At school we were known as Hensfield One and Hensfield Two. We both had
the same middle name, Owen, so people couldn’t even distinguish us by our
initials, as both of us were M.O. It was only when I went to college and began
to have my own separate set of friends that I started to feel my own freedom
of identity.
• Before I went to college during the sixth-form holidays, I got a job on a
building site. Mike didn’t work. He was resting. One week I said to the
foreman, “Can I have a week off?” “Certainly,” he said, “but you won’t have
a job when you get back.” It was really hard work, mainly carrying sand and
bricks. On the Friday night, I said to my brother, “Would you like to earn a
week’s money?” And he said, yes. So I told him about everything. Where the
sand was, where the bricks were; and I described the eight workmen.
• On Monday morning, he went down in my jeans, jacket and woolly hat. He
worked there all week and none of them knew the difference. Two years later I
met the foreman in a pub and I bought him a drink. I told him the story, but he
just laughed and said he didn’t believe me. There was no way I could convince
him.
• Now I feel very different from my brother. We still come together for some
things but I feel quite remote from him. And he’ll tell you the same. I suppose
we have really been working towards that for forty-two years.
(Adapted from Issues in Teenage Development in International Development
magazine, 1997 issue 3)
QUESTIONS- TEXT TWO
VOCABULARY in CONTEXT (10 points)