I got the original tune and accompaniment off a beat-up tape Bill Berry made in Brisbane in 1961 and learned it when I started to play the guitar in 1964. I taught it to Adele and she began singing it in folk gigs a couple of years later. We taught it to the Fagans who have just recorded it.

I ran into Bill ten years ago in the Blue Mountains and played it and his other excellent songs from that tape back to him; he remembered them well and it sounds like it has spurred him on to perform them again.

The "Dream of the morning with a cock in his hand" juxtaposition is due to Merv Lilley who never was keen on sentiment - makes it a bit hard to sing the song seriously once you've heard it.

However I've always had a sneaking idea, given her interests, that Mum wrote it that way on purpose.

I will have to ask Martyn Wyndham-Read what his tune is - he has never admitted writing a third one!