Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

THE PAST PERFECT

355

Time up to ‘then’

355a

Just as the present perfect refers to a time-frame leading up to the moment of

speaking (

Û

351a

), so the past perfect refers to a time-frame leading up to a point

in the past. The present perfect refers to ‘time up to now’; the past perfect refers to

‘time up to then’:

events

past

then

That was in 1938. I left in June with the children for a new home in Oxford,

where my mother 

had bought a house. My father had died in 1936.

This can be illustrated as:

time before ‘then’

‘then’ (= 1938)

I left in June

… my mother 

had bought a house

… my father 

had died

The au pairs always used to call her Cruella. She was terrible. Her husband

had died of cancer two years previously so I could see why she had a problem.

(two years before the events the speaker is recounting)

[speaker is talking about his tennis coach]

At my club there was Frank Parsons, who 

had coached similar boys my age. 

(during a time before the time he coached the speaker)

As she sat eating in the caged silence, she thought of all the thousands of

meals George must have had here, alone, in all these years. Did he ever cook

himself something good? What 

had he been thinking all those silent weekends

and evenings on his own?

(the thoughts he had in the time before she sat there thinking of him)