Unit 5 Company history

1(8). Listening. Listen and practice.

Companies often include details about their history in their marketing literature, their annual reports and company presentations, in order to show that they are established, and have experience in their field. This can include information about the founder or person who started the company, and key dates and events in the company history.

2 (9). Listening. Marks and Spencer is a major retailer selling food, clothes, household furnishings. Listen and answer the questions about key events in the company history.

1. When did Michael Marks and Tom Spencer form a partnership?

2. When did they register the Saint Michael trademark?

3. When and where did they open their first store?

4. What did they introduce in 1931?

5. Where did Marks and Spencer open stores in 1975?

6. When did they open stores in Hong Kong?

7. What happened in 1997 in the history of the company?

3. Reading. What do you know about Ford company and its history? Read the magazine article.

Ford of Britain

In the spring of 1896 Henry Ford built his first horseless carriage. In 1903 Ford, backed by 12 local businessmen, formed the Ford Motor Company which later pioneered modern production line techniques.

In 1911 Ford’s first assembly plant outside North America opened at Trafford Park, Manchester, and in 1929 work started on building the Dagenham plant where the first Model AA truck rolled off the line at 1:15 p.m. on October 1, 1931.

4. What do these numbers from the text refer to?

12, 1903, 1929, 1896, 1931, 1911.

5. Complete these sentences.

1. In 1996 Henry Ford _________ his first car.

2. In 1903 Henry Ford __________ the Ford Motor Company.

3. Twelve local businessmen _________ him.

4. In 1911 Ford __________ the first assembly plant in Manchester, England.

5. In 1929 he _______ building the Dagenham plant.

6. Reading. Read this history of Dr. Martens Shoes. The writer uses present tense to make the summary seem ‘alive’. Change the verbs into past tense while reading.

Mind new words:

injure	повредить
tyre	шина
air sole	воздушная подушка, прослойка
bootmaker	производитель обуви
youth	молодежь
antiestablishment attitudes	антиправительственные настроения
rebel	повстанец
violent	жестокий
stall	маленький магазин
customized	по индивидуальному заказу

Dr. Martens

1946 A German doctor Klaus Maertens, living in Seeshaupt, near Munich, goes skiing and injures his foot. He makes himself a pair of shoes from old tyres with air soles to comfort the foot. Dr. Maertens and a friend, Dr. Herbert Funck, an engineer, patent and develop the Dr. Maertens Shoe.

1959 Maertens and Funck sell the manufacturing rights to R. Griggs and Co., a traditional British bootmaker.

1 April 1960 The first British DMs go on sale.

Mid 1960s British youth adopt the DM as a symbol of their antiestablishment attitudes.

1970s Unemployed youth wear DMs and behave violently on football terraces. The police wear DMs to catch them.

1971 Rebels wear DMs in Stanley Kubrick’s violent film A Clockwork Orange.

1975 Elton John wears DMs in rock-opera Tommy.

Mid 1970s Punk rock fans adopt them.

1980s Thousands of Japanese, American and European youth come to London’s Camden market to buy DMs.

1983 Young designer Wayne Heminway and his wife-to-be Geraldine, set up a stall in Camden market selling clothes and DMs.

Griggs supplies Heminway with customized DMs for his Red or Dead Fashion Shows.

Some women wear them as a form of protest.

1985 Madonna wears DMs in the film Desperately Seeking Susan.

1992 Designers such as Karl Lagerfeld and Gianni Versace offer designer DMs.

1993 The Pope wears them walking in the Alps and we hear that Dalai Lama likes them too.

Today the Vatican Guard wear them.