I have just come across a version in AG Street’s Farmer’s Glory that he wrote down in early 1930s. It was dictated by the dairyman whom Street had heard singing this at Harvest Suppers prior to the First World War:

O, I’m a breastin sort ov a chap
Me father comes from Shareham
Me mother got some more like I
She well knows ‘ow to rear ‘em
O, some the call me bacon vace
An’ others turmut ‘ead
But I’m as clever as other volk
Although I’m country bred.

I can drive a plough
Or milk a cow
O, I can reap or sow
I’m as fresh as the daisies in the fields
And the calls I Buttercup Joe.

You ‘eavy swells mid laugh and chat
To see us eat vat bacon
But you can’t take our country beer
And that’s where you’re mistaken
A drop o’ moey and shannon too
You drink it at your ease
But give me an ‘omebrewed glass
With crust ov bread and cheese.

O ain’t it prime in summer time
When we go out haymakin’
The lads and lasses with us chaps
Freedom will be taken
And don’t they jiggle and make us laugh
Ov Course in harmless play
They likes to get us country chaps
To roll ‘em in the hay.

O, do you know my young ooman
They calls her our Mary
She works as busy as a bee
In Farmer Johnson’s dairy
And ain’t her suety dumplins nice
My gosh I mean to try
And ask her if she’d like to wed
A rusty chap like I.