Sorry Cap'n, in the middle of painting the bathroom - quick reply; more later.
Walter was present at family sing-songs (harvest and Christmas), but his participation was very slight; he said he song The Dark Eyed Sailor' bucause "nobody else wanted it".
When he returned home after the war the main singers of the family were all dead and, with the help of his mother, he began rebuilding the family repertoire; writing the texts in a notebook and memorising the tunes on the melodeon.
The tunes are extremely interesting as, while they appear to be the standard ones, little differences make them unique to him (Mike Yates wrote an interesting piece on this in Musical Traditions).
Walter's main singing was done in the context of the revival (as, in fact, I believe many of our traditional singers was).
I think I have a written account of Walter's 'collecting' and his introduction to the revival somewhere, which I will be happy to let you have (and/or put up on Mudcat if there is room - it's quite large).
Back to the ******* bathroom, more later,

Jim Carroll