Forgot to mention my new website is under construction at the moment, my biography is available at www.patcooksey.com This gives a bit more information about the early days of the song.
The letter in the readers digest was indeed from a naval officer telling a similar story, I don't have the music hall details to hand but I have seen it mentioned as far back as 1917.
The song PADDY STOLE THE ROPE is not the same song as mine, but tells of similar misfortune.
The quote from me in 1996 is correct, but it was me who tried to compete with Neil Armstrong in the Skillet Pot folk club in Birmingham.
When my website is complete all other known titles will be listed, I cannot remember them all at the moment, but some others are Paddys Lamentation, The Excuse Letter, Paddy and the Rope, Paddy and the Bricks, Brendan and the Bricks, and Paddys Calamity, there are also two versions in German as the Dubliners have made the song very famous here, in my own concerts in Germany the audiences love the song although they must know it backwards by now.
I hope finally to visit the U.S.A. later in the year and sing the song myself.