Uncle 'Syd' the rock legend... a real diamond
PERHAPS the most bizarre evidence of fans’ devotion to the late Syd Barrett came when his family discovered, after his death, that someone was selling little bags of soil from the garden of his Cambridge house.
People had beaten a path to the door of that semi in a quiet cul-de-sac for many years.
As his erstwhile bandmates in Pink Floyd went from success to success as global rock leviathans, press and media would also occasionally knock on Syd Barrett’s door, usually eliciting little more than the odd sentence as he put the rubbish out.
And so the legend grew of a mad genius who had kick-started one of the most enduring and successful projects in English rock, made a drug-addled exit and spent the rest of his life as a tortured hermit.
All of which is a long way from Ian Barrett’s recollections of his uncle Roger – Syd’s real name.
“All the perceptions I had of him were that he was perfectly cheerful,” says Ian, aged 36, from Fallowfield, Manchester.
“We’d go and visit and he’d show us round his garden and the paintings he’d been doing. He was not the anguished troubled individual.
“His days were filled by painting, watching telly, popping to the shops – just a totally normal life. But the myth fed itself because people just didn’t know.
“He said no to celebrity. And that’s the bit people couldn’t grasp, because it’s so unusual. He did something that people just don’t do.”
The family was surprised when Barrett’s death in 2006 made front page news. And they were even more surprised that fascination with Barrett just continued to grow.
When they auctioned off his effects to raise money for a trust to help artists, they were amazed to see thousands being bid for Syd’s scruffy armchair, his bikes and artworks. A Pi chart showing the summer and winter solstice – looking much like a child’s homework – fetched £5,000.
“He probably spent 10 minutes on that,” muses Ian, who came to Manchester as a drama student and now makes jewellery from meteorites and fossils, selling them online at jurassicjewellery.co.uk.
An A4 ring binder of notes, containing just ‘a few pages of scribbles’ by Barrett fetched £1,500. A home-made bread bin also raised a four-figure sum.
DIY
“He did a lot of DIY. He was rubbish at it, but he enjoyed doing it” says Ian. “He tried to rewire the house and a company had to be brought in afterwards to make it safe.”
Among those fascinated by the legend of Syd was playwright Tom Stoppard. Syd is a recurring figure in Stoppard’s play Rock ‘n’ Roll, which begins a month-long run at Manchester’s Library Theatre on Friday. Ticket sales are brisk, perhaps because of that Floyd factor.
Roger Keith Barrett was one of five brothers and sisters brought up in a middle class family in Cambridge, the son of a pathologist. His brother Of his siblings, Don, Ian’s father, became a metallurgist for Vauxhall, Rosemary a nurse, Alan a research scientist and Ruth a teacher.
Roger, nicknamed Syd as a teenager, went to Camberwell Arts School in London. But the aspiring artist fell in with musicians who would create a cutting edge psychedelic sound.
LSD
The Piper At the Gates Of Dawn, Pink Floyd’s debut album in 1967 brought success on both sides of the Atlantic, but Barrett’s increasingly erratic behaviour and copious use of LSD meant that the band hired a second guitarist, David Gilmour, to cover Barrett’s deficiencies.
In one of the most famous exchanges in rock history, Pink Floyd were on their way to a gig in 1968 when one asked: “Shall we pick up Syd?” and the others said: “Let’s not bother”.
The ousted Barrett released two solo albums, but then withdrew from the record business, continuing to live in London, often at hotels such as The Ritz, until his money ran out.
In 1975, he turned up unannounced at Abbey Road studio, where Pink Floyd were recording Wish You Were Here, and in particular Shine On You Crazy Diamond, written in tribute to Barrett. A shaven-headed and overweight Syd indulged in desultory conversation and then left – his last encounter with his bandmates.
In 1981, he moved back to his mother’s home in Cambridge, and remained there for the rest of his life, living alone after his mother’s death in 1989. Syd spent the odd spell in care homes, but the family disputes the notion that he was mentally ill.
“Lots of words like schizophrenia were bandied around,” says Ian. “A lot of the family are medical. Ro is a nurse. They’ve all said there was never any specific illness you could pin it on. he had just withdrawn from society.”
Royalties continued to flow from Pink Floyd to Syd. But the family did not want any of the band to visit visiting Syd, and the subject of his legendary fame was not a topic for conversation at home.
“It wasn’t discussed because everyone knew that that’s what had precipitated the problems,” says Ian.
There was no circle of friends, no romantic attachments for Syd, no music for Syd apart from the jazz tapes he listened to. He is known to have watched at least one of the TV documentaries about his strange life, but said he found it ‘too noisy’.
“The word recluse was bandied about a lot, but just because someone does not choose to go to parties doesn’t mean they don’t function,” says Ian.
“The thing he always had was his creativity. He was always creating something. There were always paintings on the go, although he burned most of them. I don’t know why. He had this thing that the creative act was enough, He wasn’t really interested in it afterwards, so not many survived.”
Rock ‘n’ Roll by Tom Stoppard is at the Library Theatre, Manchester, from Friday, February 13 to Saturday, March 14.
Published: Tue, 10 February, 2009
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