I can identify your song, if the identification doesn't make more of a mystery.

Gus Meade's invaluable Country Music Sources book says the original song, dated 1881, is titled "Maid of York Beach (Her Age It Was Red). It sites only an arranger, M. McG. Noyes, so the song may be older but harks back certainly to some (almost certainly American) music hall original.

It was recorded by the Golden Melody Boys (Phil Featherstone and Dempsey Jones) accompanied by tuple and guitar, on Part 1 of "Uncle Abner and Elmer at the Rehearsal," a two-part humorous record, Paramount 3153, c. October 1928.

It goes to the tune of "Villekins and His Dinah," which also (slightly altered) formed the melody for "Sweet Betsy From Pike."

A version called "Backward Song" was recorded for the Library of Congress by transplanted Missourians Russ and Joy Pike in Visalia, California in 1941 (search it on American Memory the Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin Migrant Worker collection 1940-41.