Podcast 143 - B1 The Inchcape Rock (the story)

Stories to help students at B1 level English

Story starts at 5:57

B1 - The Inchcape Rock story

There is a place off the west coast of Scotland called Bell Rock and also called the Inchcape Rock and on that rock there is a lighthouse. A lighthouse is a tall tower, a tall building with a light on the top. The light warns ships to stay away because if they hit the rock, they’ll probably be destroyed. This lighthouse was built by Robert Stevenson in 1807.

But the story I’m going to tell you today goes back before then - before the lighthouse was built. It was a terrible time for ships because the rock or reef (which means a very long rock) was invisible just under the water. Ships were constantly running into it. During a terrible storm in 1779, 70 ships broke up on this reef and hundreds of lives were lost.

This is a story about an abbot. An abbot is a religious man who lives in a monastery. He did something to save those ships so they wouldn’t hit the Inchcape Rock. Listen and find out what he did. And find out too what his cruel brother, Sir Ralph the Rover did next.

This is a story I’ve rewritten from the poem by Robert Southey (and you can hear that poem at podcast 43 - that was for B2-level English). This story is for B1-level students and I’ll start off with a quick introduction to the B1 level words that talk about ships and the sea. So here we go…

So, first of all, I will just tell you some of the words that are connected with the sea and ships. And these are B1 words with one exception. And that exception is tide. It is an important word for the story. The tide is how the sea goes up and down; according to the movement of the moon around the earth. It makes the level of the sea rise and fall - go up and down. That's called the tide.

The B1 words are sailors, which is a person who works on the ship.

A port which is a town where you have a place where ships go, that's a port.

And then we have the word pirate, and a pirate is like a thief or a robber, but they work on ships, attack other ships stealing from them.

We have the word to sail, the verb to sail, and that means to go along in a boat is to sail - the boat sails or the ship sails.

The expression to be on board, which means to be inside a ship.

The wind blows and the wind blows and makes the ship go along - especially those older ships as we are talking about.

And we have the word crew. The crew are the sailors and other people who work in the ship. All the people together are called the crew.

And then finally, we have the verb to sink, which is when a ship hits something, for example, a rock, and it breaks up water, comes in and the ship goes under the water. It sinks. Okay, so here's the story The Inchcape Rock, retold by M. A. Bilbrough.

If you are interested in improving your B1-level English, you could buy my book The Tudor Conspiracy... an exciting novel with exercises and glossary.

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