Regarding WP's melodeon playing, Pseudonymous writes:

"And you do understand what I mean by 'data on this originating with Pardon himself', but obviously not. Or you might have given a reference to that data. Too much trouble?

The conjectural stuff, as a moment's thought on this might have shown, is the discussions on whether the tunes were distorted by his habit of playing them or trying to play them on the melodeon. Right?"

If you expressed yourself more clearly (and took the trouble to do basic stuff like distinguishing between quotes from previous posts and your own contributions), it might be easier to see what you're getting at. Another handy hint, by the way, is that attempting to patronise other posters doesn't raise the tone of the discussion.

Here's what I take to be the relevant passage from Jim's account - though since you didn't bother to cut and paste it I can't be sure:

"During the long period of not hearing them, at least 20 years, he kept the songs alive for himself by playing the tunes on the melodeon. Did they perhaps get changed then? Were certain phrases easier for him to play on the melodeon? Or was it simply his own creativity, that he preferred certain musical phrases to others? We’ll never know, of course, but certainly Walter’s tunes are a little different to standard versions and very distinctive."

I see nothing unreasonable in raising these questions - they're precisely the kind of thing I'd have been asking in Jim's place. One of the questions often asked about song variation is whether it's a matter of individual creativity, faulty execution or imperfect memory. If a singer with tunes as flamboyant and intricately ornamented as - say - Joseph Taylor - had used a melodeon (in many ways a crude instrument) as an aide-memoire, it's reasonable to consider whether those tunes might have been changed along the way.

One possible way in which a melodeon might act as a leveller on melodies would be if the player knew only how to play 'on the push', in which case everything would come out in the major. But we know this wasn't the case with WP. I'd also say that the melody for something like 'A Ship to Old England came would be quite counter-intuitive on a melodeon, which suggests that he wasn't dumbing down tunes by remembering them in this way.

I need hardly add that many of the same questions regarding individual creativity would apply whether or not a melodeon had been involved. And Jim's would have been an inferior account (the world, indeed, would be a duller place) without the kind of'conjecture' you seem to find objectionable.