Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin

Subject: RE: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 03 Apr 12 - 09:43 AM

Barry is the only member of our family ever to be confused with being a member of the English nobility.

Subject: RE: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 07:54 PM

Barry was a page boy at my Mum's wedding.

I only met him once - I was four, and all he said was -don't touch my guitar!

Subject: RE: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: freda underhill
Date: 02 Apr 12 - 06:22 PM

Here's three pix of Barry Halpin in Mucky Duck in 1978. He spent about 5 years in Western Australia and was a very fine tin whistle player. Last night I had dinner with catter hilda fish and her partner Butch who was a member of Mucky Duck at the time Barry was in it. Butch rolled out some very entertaining stories about Barry, but also expressed the view that he was not Lord Lucan.

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: Gareth
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 06:45 PM

Naaaaah ! Can't be Lord Lucan - He's not riding Shergar !

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: GUEST,Li'l Aussie Bleeder.
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 06:39 PM

Barry Halpin was a member of 'The Mucky Duck' Bush band in Perth Western Australia. He is in a photo of the band taken in 1978 and is believed to have headed for India believing the tax department was on to him for claiming the dole when he was working with the band.
This story featured in the local paper in Perth Sept 10th and the information was from former band co-founder Greg Hastings.

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 04:32 PM

Someone's just got to write the Ballad of Barry Halpin.

Actually, if they were still making Carry On films, and the original team could be rounded up in a time machine for the shoot, this could be an ideal basis for one. Sid James as Barry and as Lord Lucan; Kenneth Williams as Duncan McLaughlin (who had to resign from the drug squad at Scotland Yard after being suspended, allegedly "after giving evidence about the 'sexual antics' of a senior officer"). "Carry On Barry".

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: Willa
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 12:04 PM

BTW, Kevin, this chap does have some tapes of Halpin.

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: Willa
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 12:01 PM

Story in the local paper http://www.thisishull.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=61049&command=displayContent&sourceNode=60576&contentPK=6987314

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: GUEST,Santa
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 12:00 PM

I didn't mention the banjo because of the convention of not speaking ill of the dead.

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: Tam the Bam (Nutter)
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 11:47 AM

I had a look at the picture and NO WAY is that Lord Lucan.
And yet there are people out there who will believe that it is.

Poor sods.

Tom

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 10 Sep 03 - 04:14 AM

The last folkie to make the front pages of the national rags was Dave Swarbrick, and he only had to deny his death to get there.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 06:16 PM

I'd love to be a fly on the wall at Duncan McLaughlin's next meeting with his publisher.

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 05:24 PM

I think this version gets the story more the right way round:

It was one of the great remaining mysteries of the 20th Century – what on earth happened to heavy drinking Lancashire folk singer Barry Halpin?

A well-known character in the pubs and clubs of north-west England who always addressed friends as "old cock", Barry disappeared from view in the mid-1970s.

But thanks to a new book by former Scotland Yard detective Duncan MacLoughlin, we (and the rest of the world) now know that Barry drank himself to death in Goa, southern India, in 1996.

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: ard mhacha
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 04:59 PM

Despite Mike Harding making a complete fool of prize sleuth Duncan McLaughlin he is sticking to his story, now where have I heard that before?. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 02:46 PM

McGrath,

Many thanks for the 'Tichborne Claimant' link.

I hadn't heard about it before, and found your link fascinating. Cheers.

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: Amos
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 12:53 PM

LOL!!! Quite!! Simply not done, is it!!! ROTFLMAO~!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 12:53 PM

If any one has any tapes of Barry Halpin there should be the mnakings of a great cult CD.

And from what Mike Harding says, one that would sound pretty good into the bargain.

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: John Robinson (aka Cittern)
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 12:46 PM

Come on Santa .. I can fully understand Lady Lucan's response:

Murdering the staff and drinking yourself to death is one thing .. but playing a banjo ....

Best regards
John Robinson
http://www.JulieEllison.co.uk

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: GUEST,Santa
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 11:07 AM

Only 11 minutes before a "Refresh" - is this a record? But over two and a half hours before the first Irish posting blaming the Brits... bet that's not!

The fun bit was reading Lady Lucan's horrified dismissal of the idea. Her husband could never stoop so low. Murdering the staff, drink himself to death, well OK, they're much less awful prospects.

However, the guy has never stood trail for this crime: whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? I guess that doesn't exist for the media today.

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: ard mhacha
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 10:04 AM

McGrath sure the man who discovered this Lord Lucan was a former Scotland Yard Defective, we can`t be too hard on him, after all Barry wasn`t the first poor Irishman blamed in the wrong by the Worlds finest. Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 08:22 AM

Here's the Guardian story - Lord Lucan? Er, no. It's Barry the banjo player from St Helens , with links to the letters from Mike Harding and others.

It seems the fella who came up with the story is clinging on to the suggestion that the guy calling himself Barry Halpin out in Goa was actually the murderous peer, and that he had stolen his identity, and presumably had him rubbed out.

There is a physical similarity mind you from those pictures. Mayeb it's a shame that the singer didn't turn up and claim to be Lord Lucan a few years back - it would have been a story to match and beat that of the Tichborne Claimant.

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: Noreen
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 07:55 AM

Yes, I remember Barry from the 60s and 70s in Liverpool, when he would turn up on very odd occasions and be greeted warmly back into the fold of the Irish Centre, before he set off again.

Strange to hear about him on the national news, and in such circumstances!

Subject: RE: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: Nemesis
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 07:39 AM

Refresh

Subject: BS: Lord Lucan/Barry Halpin
From: GUEST,Santa
Date: 09 Sep 03 - 07:28 AM

Letters in the Guardian today from Mike Harding and Tom Walsh.

The recent book describing how Lord Lucan escaped the police and media hunt to set himself up in the Far East as "Jungly Barry" has been exploded by the identification of "Jungly Barry" as Barry Halpin, itinerant Irish musician and teacher from Liverpool, who performed in various NW folk clubs in the 60s and 70s.

Nice to see folk performers making the front page of national newspapers....though I could have done without Mike's poem, I don't suppose Ted Hughes was much cop on the penny whistle, either.

I don't recall Barry Halpin, maybe he didn't perform at Blackpool in the mid-70s. Anyone else remember him?