Example sentences of "he used to " in BNC.

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1 He used to be a seaman .
2 He used to be a keen sportsman in his younger days and rowed for England .
3 The children were deeply ashamed : ‘ He used to be like that when Luke was here , Rose ; only it was worse . ’
4 Anyway , David used to travel in Ralph 's Mark 10 Jag to any gigs and never used to put any of the gear away when we 'd done our work , whereas before he used to .
5 He used to just sit there with a 12 string guitar and often used a tape recorder with backing tracks , and then put on a harmony live or used a stylophone .
6 In fact he used to be seen lunching austerely in his favourite vegetarian restaurant on the corner of Leicester Square , where the permitted maximum of five shillings for the price of a meal could only be spent by earnest application .
7 For a moment he entertained the hope that he might be allowed to call her ‘ Mam ’ , the way he used to , or even ‘ Mummy ’ , as she always called herself when speaking to other people .
8 St Colum seems to have attracted legends around himself wherever he went , for as Columba he used to be well known to every Scottish schoolboy for converting the King of the Picts , banishing water horses and other praiseworthy acts .
9 He used to be so … ’
10 Not as alive as he used to be , ’ runs the caption to one cartoon .
11 During a recent election broadcast he featured as Sir Denis ‘ Foreman ’ — as in the foreman of a building site , rather than of Granada of which he used to be deputy chairman .
12 He does n't believe his wife 's 92-year-old grandmother , Wendy ( Maggie Smith ) , when she assures him that he used to be Peter Pan .
13 Garbo , Garland , Gardner , Garson and Gable were there — and that was just the Gs — but the old grey Mayer was n't what he used to be , and he had been ousted from MGM by the time Nicholson arrived as a messenger boy .
14 Well , it turned out he used to be a ‘ pretty successful writer ’ , but then he found he was just getting into ‘ things that were too weird . ’
15 He used to be asked long , drawn-out questions that went on and on .
16 He used to be next door to Ryan 's Son , but now Hopscotch is in Ryan 's old stable .
17 In his pre-sponsorship days he used to be known as ‘ the surfer who lived in a car ’ ; in France he had a tent on the beach .
18 He used to be a surfer and dreamed of being one again .
19 He was on the dole for a long time and he used to just eat mashed potato and things like that . ’
20 Another thing we had a barney with Peter about at one point , was the fact that he used to be too drunk on stage , ’ says Charman .
21 He used to be pretty good , as I remember . ’
22 And here he was , a man turned sixty , still upright , but no longer handsome or as jolly as he used to be .
23 He 's very uncooperative and aggressive , not at all like what he used to be … oh yes , it is a strain . ’
24 He did n't enjoy women the way he used to , but killing them was different .
25 He used to be chauffeur-driven to market and one evening , when returning via Lower Road , Bemerton , on the way back to his home at Donhead , saw a small child in the water , being swept downstream by the fast-flowing River Nadder .
26 He used to be a very useful runner in his younger days , ’ Joe explained , ‘ used to run for the Gloucester Harriers so they say .
27 Dose assessment : The account of dose calculation contained in Urquhart 's article does not allow the method he used to be completely understood , and it has proved to be impossible to obtain the ‘ fuller version ’ of the article , either from the Journal of Nuclear Information .
28 Alain Prost is not as quick as he used to be but was smarter , and Nigel Mansell is not the smoothest driver around but he has a lot of ‘ mechanical talent ’ .
29 ‘ Not as alive as he used to be ’
30 He used to be at Cowley , ’ said Jack rather reluctantly , not feeling up to casual conversation .
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