It is not known why Minton and Ross chose to visit Corsica but the inspiration possibly lay in Edward Lear's Journal of a Landscape Painter, in which the artist records a visit to Corsica. The title of the work comes from the poet, Louis MacNeice, 'Time was away and somewhere else'

(See F. Spalding, Dance til the Stars Come Down A Biography of John Minton, London, 1991, pp.109, 110)