Talk about English - Private lives - Part 7 | Текст песни

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• Private lives - Part 7

Alan Gowans, the manager of a large supermarket

Группа Learning English.
Продолжение транскрипта здесь:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/webcast/scripts/private_lives/private_lives_7.pdf

Sue: In Private lives today we meet Alan Gowans. He’s the manager of a large
supermarket owned by Sainsbury's, one of the biggest food store companies in
Britain. During the programme, we’ll join Alan in his office and on the shop
floor. We’ll hear him talk about the kind of people who shop in the
supermarket, and what they buy. But before we look at what’s on offer in
British supermarkets, we learn a little about Alan’s life. Alan was born in a small
town on the west coast of Scotland, where he and his brothers went to the local
secondary school. The family lived in a council house - basic housing, owned by
the state.
Clip Alan Gowans
I was born in Armadale in Scotland. I’ve got me mother and father and three brothers. A
typical upbringing. We lived on a council estate. We went to the local comprehensive. In terms
of hobbies at a younger age - was obviously football mad. I joined a pipe band as a drummer -
that took a lot of time in my youth.
Sue: Every Saturday and Sunday, Alan’s pipe band took part in local competitions.
And when Alan and his schoolfriends weren’t playing traditional Scottish music,
they listened to the latest records by the rock group Status Quo. Classical music
was “softy” - it wasn’t tough.
Clip Alan Gowans
Now, really I’m quite happy to listen to most music. Probably as a child I would never have
dreamt about getting involved in classical - we always thought it was a bit softy. But I
thoroughly enjoy it now.
Sue: After he left school, Alan became a trainee metallurgist. But a possible career
studying metals came to an end when the company he was working for ran into
financial difficulties, and he was made redundant. Alan joined the Royal Navy as
an officer, and met Judy, who became his wife.
Clip Alan Gowans
When I left the pipe band, I gave up drumming for quite a while. And certainly, when I got
married one of my dreams was to have a drum kit - which I eventually bought. But
subsequently I had to sell it about 8 months later because the next door neighbours and half the
street were banging on my door, demanding that it went - so it did. But one day, I will
ultimately get a drum kit again.
Sue: Alan left the Royal Navy after two and a half years, and became a trainee
manager at Sainsbury’s. Now he’s one of their most successful store managers,
and the branch he’s in charge of is typical of many other large, out-of-town
supermarkets in affluent parts of Britain. Most British cities and towns have
“out-of-town shopping centres”. These have a large supermarket with a large
car park. There’s also often a petrol station, a Do It Yourself hardware store,
one or two fast-food restaurants, and sometimes a multi-screen cinema! Alan
shows us into his office.
Clip Alan Gowans
This is my office, rather small and cramped considering the size of the building! On my desk I
have a VDU, which enables me to access into the systems which we have within the store. And
above the desk, I have my various files - the most important one being my “profit and loss”
account! And also in the office, we’ve got a CCTV - that’s an internal television system that
allows us to monitor various areas within the store. So, at the moment it’s focused in on one of
our checkouts and checkout operators.
Sue: There are 30 checkouts in this supermarket, where customers pay for their
goods. Checkout operators pass each item over an electronic scanner which
reads the price, and produces an itemised bill for the customer. There are over
20,000 commodities on sale in the store - including fresh fruit, vegetables, meat
and fish, frozen food, bread and cakes, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, and
baby foods.
...

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