Noticing form Notice the form of the verbs italicised in these sentences. My grandmother was an old woman. She had been old and wrinkled for the twenty years that I had known her. People said that she had once been young and pretty and had even had a husband, but that was hard to believe.
When we both had finished we would walk back together. When I came back she would ask me what the teacher had taught me. It was the first time since I had known her that she did not pray. .
The sun was setting and had lit her room and verandah with a golden light. These are examples of the past perfect forms of verbs. When we recount things in the distant past we use this form.