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About

This pair of songs (see also, Lullaby) were probably written during the 1920s. In 1930, Haydon married Masterton school teacher Lily Hall, who was also a pianist. Sometime around then he joined the Salvation Army and began writing music for their use including hymns, songs and marches. Most of his subsequent music is imbued with this religiosity, which diminishes its musical originality.

Joice NanKivell (1887 – 1982) was an Australian poet whose three collections of poetry were published between 1916 and 1926 and may help date Haydon’s setting. She married Sydney Loch, a Gallipoli veteran and Quaker who wrote a book about his experiences in the trenches that was banned by the military for its truthful look at the events. He and Joice spent the rest of their lives in humanitarian pursuits including ‘Operation Paperclip’, a World War Two operation to get Romanian and Jewish children out of Romania, for which they were recognised by the Polish, Romanian and Australian governments.