John Halsey (born 23 February 1945 in Highgate) has, since 1996, been the landlord of the Castle Inn public house (Castle Street). He is also a rock drummer, particularity well known for his appearance as Barrington Womble (“Barry Wom”) in The Rutles, leading to his playing with Neil Innes’s band Fatso and appearing in the television film All You Need is Cash (1978). John’s early career was as a musician, playing in the bands Timebox and Patto, though it was mostly session work which paid the bills (he played on Lou Reed’s Transformer album for instance). He also recorded as a session musician on albums including Back to the Night by Joan Armatrading (1975), Woman in the Wings by Maddy Prior (1978) and Mail Order Magic by Roger Chapman (1980). He toured with others including Joe Cocker, The Scaffold, Grimms, and Joe Brown.
In an interview for the magazine Ptolemaic Terrascope in 1992, he said that he spent much of the 1980s selling fish from the back of a van after a near-fatal accident in Chichester in 1983 and that since then, he has been in the pub trade. Since 1996 he has been the landlord of the Castle Inn public house in Castle Street, Cambridge.
In an interview in 2015 with the retroladyland blog he said ” My wife and I retired 2 and a half years ago and one of my son’s runs a pub now and I go in a couple of lunchtimes a week…” Good luck to you John!
Sources:
Wikipedia article on John Halsey