The composition of Winter Notebook was begun early in 1976 in response to a commission for a new work for recorder and organ in memory of Dorothy Kent, who had been a prominent figure in Bournemouth musical circles. The first three movements of this work were presented in April of that year at a memorial concert in Victoria Park Methodist Church, Bournemouth by Patricia Davies (née Perrett), who studied recorder with Edgar Hunt at Trinity College of Music, with the composer at the organ. The fourth movement was not added until March 1988 when Geoffrey Baker, the first recorder player ever to reach the woodwind final of BBC Young Musician of the Year, and Richard Powell, organ scholar elect of Trinity Hall Cambridge, gave the first complete performance of the work in a concert at Magdalen College School Oxford.

In this edition, the recorder part has been supplied with full dynamic markings, which may not necessarily be attainable in the literal sense but are intended to indicate the expressive shape of the line. Suggested organ registrations must be adapted to whatever instrument is available; if precise sonorities cannot be matched it is hoped that the implied contrasts of tone will be achieved.