I taught in New South Wales public schools from 1978-2015 - it was a rewarding, exhausting, challenging, exhilarating, frustrating and demanding career. At various times in those nearly 40 years I was a classroom teacher, school executive, sports coach, librarian and principal. Every job rewarded the effort you were prepared to put into it. I was very pleased to have retired by the time Covid came around but I saw how incredibly hard my daughter and son-in-law worked during this time. Politicians, businesses and media paid lip service to teachers (and nurses, aged care workers, police and other frontline services) but very few called for better wages, increased staffing or improved working conditions for these heroic service providers. When the worst of Covid was over the NSW Teachers Federation was negotiating a new teaching award and the NSW State Government strongly opposed wage increases, staffing increases and better disability support - a 'Thank You' was considered sufficient. The NSW Teachers Federation ran a campaign called 'MoreThan Thanks' and this inspired my song. PS The picture is me singing with my class at Ben Venue PS in 1995more

After I recorded Time Is Right I was happy with the song but thought it was a bit of a vanity project. I was unlikely to have a rock band to play behind me; at best I would be performing at folk clubs or open mics. I decided to re-record the song in a pared back version - in a different key, at a different tempo and with different instrumentation, modified arrangement and laidback feel. It now feels like quite a different song.more

Even though I had played in lots of bands for maybe forty years, when I tried writing songs in the past they never seemed to work - embarrassing self conscious lyrics and derivative music. In 2021, in Covid lockdown I decided to give Garageband another go and the songs flowed. Sometimes you just have to wait until the time is right. This is a song I could see myself playing in Dirranbandi Bushband - rocking out at the end of the night. Pity the band had broken up twenty years earlier.more