Section B

 

 

There doesn't seem any need to be married

What do you dream about?

 

Most of us dream for about two hours each night and almost always about people: for 45 per cent of the time about

people we know and 55 per cent those that we do not. Men

are twice as likely to dream of men as of women and for both

sexes only 30 per cent of dreams are of groups of people, compared with 70 per cent about individual characters.

Apparently we rarely dream about people in the public eye but some 20 per cent of our dreams include our family. Mothers appear 34 per cent of the time, fathers 27 per cent,

brothers 14 per cent and sisters 12 per cent. On the whole,

the themes of our dreams tend towards the unhappy, with

fear occurring in 40 per cent, anger in 18 per cent and sadness in 6 per cent.

 

At the age of 40, ballet dancer Lesley Collier has just become the mother of twin boys. She has been married twice· and now lives with the twins' father, Guy Niblett, who is also a ballet dancer.

 

Lesley has lived with Guy for just over three years, six months longer than she has been divorced from her second husband, ballet critic Nicholas Dromgoole. Nicholas was 19 years her senior. Guy is 11 years her junior, blond and deliciously handsome with twinkling blue eyes.

'I have never managed to find someone of my own age,'

she smiled. 'The relationship with Guy was something I didn't want to get into, because he is so much younger. I worried terribly about it. But when I bought my flat [after she left her second husband) he began to stay nights and I kept saying

"I must not make this permanent 1." Then he moved in and I still said "I must not make it permanent,'' but now I feel it's important for us to be together and I've stopped worrying.

'Certainly when I was the younger partner in a relationship

with Nicholas the age difference didn't worry me, although he worried about it. I think it bothers the older person rather than the younger one. Nicholas gave our relationship ten years.2

He knew I would go off and find a younger man. But we

have remained good friends and he loves the twins.' Will she marry again?

'I doubt it. We have a very happy relationship. There doesn't seem any need to be married and I actually don't want to.'

(from Vital Statistics by Gyles Brandreth)

 

Were you surprised by the facts in the passage? Write what things you dream about.

tirom an article in The Mail on Sunday YOU Magazine)

permanent 1: lasting forever

gave our relationship ten yee rs 2: thought our relationship would last about ten years

 

Look carefully at the text to decide if the following are true (T) or false (F).

1. Nicholas is 59 now.

2. Guy is 29 now.

3. 'her senior' means 'younger than her'.

4. Lesley has been divorced for 31!2 years.

5. Guy was 29 when he and Lesley started living together.