Simple past and simple past perfect in typical contexts

The past perfect combines with other past tenses (simple past, past progressive, past perfect progressive) when we are talking or writing about the past. It is used in story-telling, biography, autobiography, reports, eye-witness accounts, etc and is especially useful for establishing the sequence of events: When we returned from our holidays, we found our house in a mess What had happened while we had been away? A burglar had broken into the house and had stolen a lot of our things (Now that the time of the burglary has been established relative to our return, the story can continue in the simple past). The burglar got in through the kitchen window He had no difficulty in forcing it open Then he went into the living-room

Note the reference to an earlier past in the following narrative:

Silas Badley inherited several old cottages in our village He wanted to pull them down and build new houses which he could sell for high prices He wrote to Mr Harrison, now blind and nearly eighty, asking him to leave his cottage within a month Old Mr Harrison was very distressed (The situation has been established through the use of the simple past. What follows now is a reference to an earlier past through the use of the simple past perfect.) He had been born in the cottage and stayed there all his life His children had grown up there, his wife had died there and now he lived there all alone

The present perfect progressive and past perfect progressive tenses

Form of the present/past perfect progressive tenses

The present perfect progressive is formed with have been + the -ing form The past perfect progressive is formed with had been + the -ing form. See under be [> 10.12] for details about form

Present perfect progressivepast perfect progressive

They have (They've) They had (They'd) i

The present/past perfect progressive

Uses of the present/past perfect progressive tenses