"AC",
       I kid you not. Below is the version I wrote and we have it "Elsie`s Band" repertoire to this very day. I do not remember meeting Mr. Cooney but Dave Andrews tells me there is mention in his credits of how he got it. Did he record me at the time? Who knows?
   
""I be a fair born country lad my mother came from Fareham.
`er had another six just like I. By Christ `ow she could rare`m.
And did she cook her dumplings nice, I bet you`d like to try `em
I`ve yet to find a better one. Just a country boy like I am.

Now there be a pretty girl that I love, they calls `er our Mary.
And `er works busy as a bumblebee down in Old Giles`s dairy.
And `er can cook, and `er can sow and use the smoothing iron.
And I`m gonna take `er for my wife. A country boy like I am.

We`re gonna buy old Giles`s farm when I`ve put by some money.
We`ll stuff the bees in sacks of corn, they can make us bread and honey.
And I`ll `ave `ops in every field and a big oast `ouse to dry`em
And brew the best ale all around. A country boy like I am.

Now Mary `er wants family and I will not oppose it.
Cos she`s got one of `em on the way and I don`t think that she knows it.
So we`ll get married in yonder church before its lambing time
And settle down to raising girls and country boys like I am.""

Re the dropped: "h`s", to conjure up a sense of the rural yokel dialect.
Lee Green is a borough of SE London, near Blackheath where we held a folk club in "The Old Tiger`s Head" pub.