Empower p 34. A description of an object. Extra Cloze

Key:

I own an antique gramophone player that belonged
to my grandfather and then my father. It was made in


 
Germany in the 1920S and has a heavy base made of


 
pine wood and a large brass horn. In the days before
cassette players, CDs and iPods, this is how people




listened to music at home.




The gramophone reminds me of my childhood





because when we went to my grandfather's house




in Essex, near London, he used to play records on it.
While his grandchildren were running and bellowing
all over the house, he would be sitting there drinking






tea and listening to a scratchy recording of a Bach
sonata or Faure's Requiem.




When he died, the gramophone was handed down to


 
my father. It sat in the corner of the living room where





a light skin of dust settled upon it. It was a piece of
furniture, an heirloom that no one used or noticed




but that just seemed to belong there, just as now it




belongs in its own special corner of my living room. I
don't know if many people nowadays would recognise
a gramophone if they saw one, but I treasure the




object because of the memories associated with it.

Vocabulary:
gramophone /ˈɡræməfəʊn/ (an old-fashioned record player)

brass: /brɑːs/ a bright yellow metal

bellow: /ˈbeləʊ/ to shout in a loud deep voice, especially because you are angry. E.g. Do you have to bellow in my ear?
  
a scratchy recording (one that has been played so many times it has got damaged)

handed down (passed on from generation to generation. E.g. These skills used to be handed down from father to son. Most of his clothes were handed down to him by his older brother.)  

an heirloom /ˈeəluːm/ (valuable object that has been owned by a family for many years. E.g. a family heirloom. The violin was a family heirloom).