1 The World's First Package Tours

These days, most people choose a package tour, especially when they go abroad on holiday. They pay for their travel and accommodation in their own country, and they take traveller's cheques which they exchange for local money when they arrive in the foreign country. But in the past it was very different. In fact, before the middle of the nineteenth century, travelling for pleasure was rare and very expensive, and only a few rich people travelled abroad. The man who changed all this and brought in the age of mass tourism was Thomas Cook.

Thomas Cook was a printer in Leicester, England and the secre­tary of a local church organisation. In 1841 it was his job to arrange rail travel for members of his church to a meeting in Loughborough, a round trip of twenty-two miles. This was the world's first package trip. After this first success, he organised many more for his church.

He then started to organise trips all over Britain, including the Great Exhibition in London. In 1851 he published the world's first travel magazine which had details of trips, advice to travellers and articles and reports about the places to visit.

In 1865 Thomas Cook opened an office in London, which his son John Mason managed. By then he had a million clients.

Thomas Cook died in 1892 at the age of 84, and his son John Mason seven years later. But the age of the package tour and mass tourism was born.

Questions:

1. What is a package tour?

2. Why did people seldom travel in the past?

3. Who began the age of mass tourism?

4. When did the world’s first package trip take place?

5. When was the first travel magazine published?

6. Who helped Thomas Cook with his work?

7. How old was Thomas Cook when he died?

2 The Only Child

The most dreadful fate that I can imagine would be that of growing up as an only child. All mothers and fathers experiment on their unfortunate firstborn. They read the latest baby books_, they attend clinics and courses of lectures. They listen to the advice of maiden aunts.

They debate the exact moment to present him or her with solid food. What they find extremely difficult to do is to allow their child to grow up at his own pace, to make his own mistakes and quietly learn from them.

As soon as the second baby is on the way, the first escapes from this period of close attention. He begins to get away with things, He discovers that even if he does eat sandwiches with dirty hands, or unripe apples that have fallen from the tree, he may not be sick in the night. He acquires a sense of proportion regarding his own importance.

But what happens to the only child? Never, or at least not until it is far too late to do anything about it, does he or she escape from the minute examination of his every action. It is a miracle if he does not grow up a nervous person constantly worrying about his health, a wholly self-centered being, who shivers at the sight of his own reflection in the mirror.

Questions:

1. What is the author's attitude to the situation when there is only one child in the family?

2. How do parents treat their only child?

3. What happens when the second baby appears in the family?

4. What kind of person does the only child usually grow up to be?