The simple past tense is used to talk about actions completed in the past at a given point of time which has now ended, or a period of time now terminated.

e.g. We met at a restaurant yesterday.

       He worked in that hotel for two years. ( does not work there now)

       My grandfather once saw President Bush.

The simple past is also used to talk about a past habit.

e.g. My granny always carried an umbrella.

        He never smoked.

Past forms of regular verbs are made by adding ed to the infinitive 

e.g. started, talked, worked etc.

If a verb ends in e only d is added to make past form 

e.g. decide-decided, love-loved, care-cared etc.

If a verb ends in a single consonant following a vowel, the last consonant is doubled while adding ed in past form 

e.g. stop–stopped, travel-travelled, slip-slipped etc.

Verbs ending in y take ied after dropping y in their past form 

e.g. try-tried, cry-cried, marry-married etc.

But if the verb has a vowel before y, it takes only ed in the past form

e.g. played, stayed, prayed etc.

However, there are some irregular verbs which take entirely different form in past tense.

e.g. do-did, leave-left, eat-ate, forget-forgot, see-saw, go-went etc.

* The past form of verb is same for all the persons and number in an affirmative statement.

I went.

He went.

You went.

They went.

* A negative statement is formed using did not/didn’t+ infinitive form of verb

e.g. I did not do it.

        You didn’t wake up early.

* An interrogative statement in past form is made using did+ subject+ infinitive form of verb

e.g. Did you see?

        Did they play well?

        Did she call you?

* The negative interrogative is made using did+ subject+ not+ infinitive form of verb or didn’t+ subject+ infinitive form

e.g. Did he not tell you?

        Didn’t they finish work?