Modern workers can set an alarm clock to wake them up in the morning. But British workers during the Industrial Age used a different method for rising each morning. From the 19th century to the 20th century, a human alarm clock known as a “Knocker-up” would go down the streets and wake paying customers in time for work. They may use a stick to tap (轻敲) on windows or a pea shooter (豌豆枪) to shoot the windows with dried peas.
During that time, people worked in factories at unusual hours. They could have used alarm clocks, which had been invented by the mid-19th century, but people thought they were expensive.
Knocker-ups became common around the UK. Many of them were older and woke people up for many years. They were very professional and often wouldn’t leave people’s houses until they were sure their customers were awake.
Mary Anne Smith was a quite popular knocker-up around London’s East End in the 1930s. Every morning except Sunday she would rise at three to “Knock up” local workers—using a pea shooter with the light but clear sound.
Although this method of waking people up went on in some parts of the UK until the 1970s, it slowly disappeared as alarm clocks and electricity became popular and cheaper. But anyway, the alarm clocks and morning music of the smart phones cannot match the soft, special tap of Mary Smith’s pea shooter.
【小题1】Why weren’t alarm clocks used widely by British workers before the 1970s?| A．Because they hadn’t been invented then. |
| B．Because they were too cheap to be believed in. |
| C．Because they were too expensive to be afforded. |
| D．Because they were not as interesting as human alarm clocks. |
| A．Happy. | B．Excited. | C．Angry. | D．Missing. |
| A．The cost of the alarm clock. | B．The story of Mary Anne Smith. |
| C．The history of a human alarm clock. | D．The competition between man and machine. |
