Thanks Steve, v interested in your possible Society Journal 1930s link, would like to know more about it. & there is of course Ruth Seeger's 1940 US children's variant,= All alone & I love you-all Down by the greenwood sidey-o = which I think made its way into Bronson; but that's a somewhat different strain from the WelaWalia/MotherLee series which we are concerned with here.
Still await your address to send you my NQ note which you have undertaken to read b4 denouncing me again [as I expect you will; but still think you shd read me 1st!].