I'd like to throw in a few thoughts from across the pond. A set of words for Farewell to Tarwathie based on the George Scroggie 1850s poem, were collected by Greig and Duncan in Aberdeenshire and appear in the first volume of the Greig-Duncan 8 volume song collection, published by Aberdeen University Press. Greig and Duncan collected no tune for the song/poem lyrics. The tune that everyone associates with the lyrics comes from the singing of A.L.Lloyd, who recorded it on the Riverside album 'Thar She Blows' in 1956. It was subsequently printed by MacColl, with a note saying learnt by Lloyd from John Sinclair of Durban, South Africa in 1938. Lloyd has also said in sleeve notes that, 'the tune is an old favourite, best known in connection with the song called The Green Bushes'. It's also, of course, a slowed down version of 'Rye Whiskey'. Now here's what I find interesting. Having known that Lloyd claimed to have learnt it in Durban (he was in Durban in 1938, by the way, on the way back from his whaling trip in the Antarctic), and finding a set of the original words as collected by Gavin Greig, and knowing Bert's penchant for tinkering with songs, I decided, without looking at Bert's set of words (and which I haven't heard for p'raps thirty years), to see what changes I would make to the Greig-Duncan collected lyrics to make it singable, using the Rye Whiskey tune. After about five minutes I had knocked up a singable version, which really just needed a few words dropped out, and a few 'ands' and 'buts' etc., inserted for scansion. I then got a copy of Bert's words and lo and behold they were almost identical, in fact a couple of lines where I'd felt the need to rephrase were identical to Bert's version. Bert was also very much into cowboy and American songs in general in the 1940s and 50s, so was very familiar with the Rye Whiskey tune. So my theory is that unless the unknown John Sinclair in South Africa had access to the Gavin Greig manuscript collection, (which Bert might easily have done, I've got to check that out) and had decided to change a few of the lyrics to make it more singable, and one particular line less romantic and more feisty (one of Bert's common lyrical adaptions), and put it to the tune of Rye Whiskey, or as Bert says The Green Bushes, then the only alternative is that Bert Lloyd put it together himself, and came up with John Sinclair to give it a bit of unprovable authority. If this is correct it means that the people who've been waxing lyrical about the wonderful Scots tune have in fact just been playing and singing 'Rye Whiskey' wthout realising it. Anyway, it's almost certainly not a tune that was sung to those lyrics in Scotland in the 19th century, but admitedly one that fits very well with a bit of judicious editing.
Of course, we'll probably never know if my theory is correct, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it was. Unless we think that Rye Whiskey was an Americanization of an ur version of the tune from Scotland, which, in fact, it might actually be, even if not from the Tarwathie song.

I am writing a biography of A.L.Lloyd at the moment and would love to hear from anyone with any memories or anecdotes of Bert - personal or relating to performances you've seen, or any general thoughts about his work and influence on the folk revival in the UK.
You can email me at [storyart-at-aol.com]