Listening to the 7 NZBC programmes from 1969 featuring Colquhoun’s singing and arrangements I would hope that you don’t sing it like him.

Song of a Young Country isn't all that great, either. I'm not arguing for Colquhoun's singing. :-) (I think, given his background and what I have heard of him on other instruments, that he was better on piano than guitar.)

But you're actually agreeing with my real point, which is that he wasn't that great a tunewriter. It's why the suggestion that he wrote the "Wellerman" tune seems somewhat improbable to me. Now if you told me that Phil Garland had written the tune to "Wellerman," I would have said it explains everything....

When I say that I conform to Colquhoun's arrangement of "Wellerman," I mean (e.g.) that I do not regularize the note lengths in the first line of the chorus, which seems to have become common, and I use the dorian IV chord rather than the aeolian VI chord in the second line of the verse. Things like that.

My first source for New Zealand songs, before I got the LPs of "Song of a Young Country," was Larry Carpenter, a Minnesotan who spent a long time in New Zealand before coming back here. From him I learned "Wellerman," "Davy Lowston," "The Stable Lad," "Down a Country Road I Know," and "John Smith, A.B.," among others. Those of you who have heard Gordon Bok's versions of New Zealand songs should know that he learned them from recordings Carpenter sent him of the songs. But Bok changed them to conform to his own style. Much as I love Bok -- and I do -- I still shudder when I listen to his recording of "The Stable Lad," e.g. It's not right. :-)