Mention of "Young Alvin" brought back many very happy hours spent with Packie Manus Byrne. It also reminded me that I never managed to find out all that much about the ballad, especially where the ballad originally came from.

Let me recap. Packie recorded the piece in 1974 in order to put it onto his Topic LP "Songs of a Donegal Man". Having recorded it, I asked Packie where he had learnt it and he told me that he had picked it up in the early 1930s at Ballysadare horse fair from Kathleen Collins, a tinker whose family travelled around Fermanagh and Tyrone. He could not recall having heard it sung elsewhere. I first met Packie in the mid 1960's, when we were both living in Manchester, and we became very good friends. I spent many hours recording Packie's songs and whistle tunes and he would always tell me when he was playing a tune that he had composed himself.

I then played the ballad to various people prior to writing the album notes. I happened to be at Topic one day when the Irish collector Hugh Shields showed up. He listened to the ballad and expressed surprise that Packie had got this from a Traveller. He thought that the text was just too complete, unlike most ballad texts that he had recorded from Irish Travellers. I then played it to Bob Thompson, who was in the process of completing his PhD on the subject of broadside ballads, and Bob said that he had seen the words in a late 18th century chapbook, though he could not remember where he had seen it. Finally, I played it to Frank Purslow when I called at his home one day, and Frank said that he too knew the words and had seen them in a chapbook. Like Bob, though, he was unable to remember which chapbook!

If Bob and Frank were right, then we know that the ballad must have some age. If their memories were faulty, then we are back at square one.

The Mudcat "debate" brought out a couple of points. Valmain Goodyear pointed out that "If Alvin was riding to London from Worcestershire he wouldn't have arrived in Earl's Court. He'd have come down through Harrow, Wembley and Paddington." I did feel like saying that he only had to continue a few miles to get to Earl's Court. (Actually, what I really felt like saying was that there was no problem here. All he had to do was catch the Circle Line from Paddington and he would be at Earl's Court in a few stops. Sadly, though, I suspect that my sense of humour would not be appreciated!) Secondly, the same person, thinking of the names Alvin and Melanie, asked "Were Alvin Stardust and Melanie ever in the charts at the same time?" and we are told that on 2nd March, 1974, both were indeed in the charts! So, using a logic that would not be out of place in a Dan Brown novel, Packie must have made the song up himself, because 1974 was the year that he recorded it.

Actually, this is not the case. Someone else pointed out that Oliver Mulligan also sings the ballad, "which I believe he learnt in South Armagh, where he grew up". I contacted Oliver, who told me that he had learnt the ballad from Packie when the two of them were travelling together around the folkclubs. This was in 1969-1970. I then managed to find my diary for 1972, the year when Packie and I first started talking about a possible LP, and "Young Alvin" was one of the pieces that he then suggested he would like to sing. There were then a series of delays – I think that Packie had a fall at one time and cracked a couple of ribs – and it was not until 1974 that we finally managed to get to a studio.

I also contacted Jim Carroll, whose knowledge of Irish songs is breathtaking, but Jim had not come across "Young Alvin" from anyone else, apart from Packie. Jim also mentioned that Tom Munnelly had not come across "Young Alvin" either, adding that Tom, "was somewhat suspicious of it." But, Jim did say that the ballad did, "resemble in form some of the recitations you occasionally hear - I wonder if this is how (Packie) got it and put a tune to it. Alternatively, there were hundreds of song and recitation books available throughout the first half of the twentieth century."

I did a quick "Google" for the names Alvin and Melanie and it seems that both names are quite old, and go back several hundred years. However, the name Melanie was rather rare until the late 1930's, when it was used for one of the characters in the novel/film "Gone With the Wind". Apparently, quite a number of girls were then named Melanie, after this character. So, could it be that the song dates from the 1930's – remember, Packie said that this was when he learnt it – when the name Melanie was in vogue? Or am I too beginning to be taken over by Dan Brown!

I think that we all agree that there is something "odd" about the ballad. It just does not ring true. But, I must say that the opening line, "Young Alvin lived in Worcestershire" does intrigue me. Why Worcestershire? It is surely not the sort of place name that belongs to an Irish ballad. So, after all, could there be an English origin? Let's hope that, someday, somebody will be able to tell us.