Thanks very much John. I have never heard it sung by anyone other than Bert and after all these years, I am glad that my Chichester(?) informant was wrong. However, if I compare the version that is sung on the recording by O.J. Abbott, the version that I learned from Bert is much fuller than the recording you linked to; many more references to the different patterns, so I am left wondering if Bert's hand was involved in developing the song. If it was, then it's a fine job he made of it in my opinion.

I was just going to post this, John, when I saw your second post with reference to the release dates the first one of which was 1976. Now, I must have learned it from Bert about 1971 or 1972 so the question became "When did Edith Fowke record this and was it the source for Bert's version?" I scrolled down your website link to find that there was a small facsimile of the album sleeve. By saving this as a .jpg and enlarging it, I was able to read the notes. The recording dates of each track is not given but she writes:-

I bought a tape recorder in the fall of 1956 and decided to see if I could find any traditional song within easy reach of my home in Toronto.

so the recording could easily have preceded the album release by up to 20 years and a person like Bert was likely to have access to the field recordings of a famous collector like Edith Fowke