When the death of 60-year-old Roger "Syd" Barrett was announced on
Tuesday, the media raised an astonishing last hurrah for the founder
of Pink Floyd, the "crazy diamond" who had shunned the public gaze
for decades.
The descriptions of him as a "mad genius", "recluse" and "acid casualty"
were far off the mark, however, according to his sister Rosemary.
When I wrote Barrett’s biography, Madcap, four years ago I had
off-the-record guidance from Rosemary -- his junior by two years
and closest friend. Last week, after his death, we spoke again
and this time she went on the record -- the first time she has
given a press interview for more than 30 years.
She described him as a loving man who "simply couldn’t understand"
the continued interest in his distant Pink Floyd years and was too
absorbed in his own thoughts to spare time for fans.
While her account is naturally fond, one should remember that she
has spent much of her working life as a nurse and therefore sees
no stigma in mental illness. As children, she and Barrett shared
a bedroom and she recalls him leaping from his sheets to conduct
an imaginary orchestra. He always had an extraordinary mind,
bordering on the autistic or Aspergic. He had a rare talent to
exploit ambiguities in language and also experienced synaesthesia
-- the ability to "see sounds and hear colours" -- which was to
be a huge influence on his music in his psychedelic phase.
As a performing artist, signed to a label, he was under enormous
strain. Not only did he find fame a two-edged sword, he was also
deeply resistant to his record company’s commercial demands. He
was run ragged. Between January 1966, when the Floyd turned
professional, and January 1968, Barrett played 220 gigs around
Britain -- not to mention broadcasting and performances abroad --
as well as writing, recording and co-producing two hit singles,
most of the band’s first album and part of the second.
While his enthusiastic ingestion of any drugs available might
have triggered some disturbing behaviour, such stress might tip
anyone into nervous collapse.
From 1981, when he returned from London to the suburbs of his
native Cambridge, resumed the name Roger and set up home in his
mother’s modest semi, he made faltering but significant progress.
Rosemary is adamant that he neither suffered from mental illness
nor received treatment for it at any time since they resumed
regular contact 25 years ago. At first he did spend some time in
a private "home for lost souls" -- Greenwoods in Essex -- but
she says there was no formal therapy programme there. ("And besides,
he didn’t mix, because he was very content to be basket weaving
and making things.") Later he agreed to some sessions with a
psychiatrist at Fulbourn psychiatric hospital, Cambridge, but
neither medication nor therapy was considered appropriate.
He might have continued to find social interaction difficult --
when I knocked on his door while writing my book he greeted
me in his underpants and avoided conversation by saying that
he was just looking after the house -- but the idea that he
"didn’t recognise he was Syd" is nonsense. His troubled years
had been so painful that even thinking about his former
incarnation upset him, so he made a conscious effort to avoid
that trap.
Because he was so interested in his own thoughts, his sister
said, he often forgot about the mundane chores essential to
comfort. To keep an eye on him, she would visit or phone every
day and sometimes accompany him on expeditions into town.
Earlier this year an old friend saw the pair in Robert Sayles,
the Cambridge department store, and went up to renew their
acquaintance. "Hello, Syd," he said. "Do you remember me?"
"Yup," replied Barrett. But Rosemary cut in with "Roger is only
interested in buying some ties today", and led her brother away.
Now she admits she might have been over-protective.
Barrett lived in the semi with his mother until her death in
1991 and then remained there alone. "So much of his life was
boringly normal," said Rosemary. "He looked after himself and
the house and garden. He went shopping for basics on his bike
-- always passing the time of day with the local shopkeepers --
and he went to DIY stores like B&Q for wood, which he brought
home to make things for the house and garden.
"Actually, he was a hopeless handyman, he was always laughing
at his attempts, but he enjoyed it. Then there was his cooking.
Like everyone who lives on their own, he sometimes found that
boring but he became good at curries.
"When Roger was working he liked to listen to jazz tapes.
Thelonious Monk, Django Reinhardt, Charlie Parker and Miles
Davis were his favourites -- he always found something new in
them -- but apart from the early Rolling Stones, he’d lost
interest in pop music a long time ago.
"As for a television or radio, he didn’t feel the need to own
one because he didn’t want to waste any energy concentrating
on it. It’s not that he couldn’t apply his mind. He read very
deeply about the history of art and actually wrote an unpublished
book about it, which I’m too sad to read at the moment. But he
found his own mind so absorbing that he didn’t want to be distracted.
"He did have leisure interests. He took up photography, and
sometimes we went to the seaside together. Quite often he took
the train on his own to London to look at the major art
collections -- and he loved flowers. He made regular trips to the
Botanic Gardens and to the dahlias at Anglesey Abbey, near Lode.
But of course, his passion was his painting.
"Roger worked in a variety of styles -- though he admired no
one after the impressionists -- and you could say he came up
with his own type of conceptual art. He would photograph a
particular flower and paint a large canvas from the photograph.
Then he would make a photographic record of the picture before
destroying the canvas. In a way, that was very typical of his
approach to life. Once something was over, it was over. He felt
no need to revisit it.
"That’s why he avoided contact with journalists and fans. He
simply couldn’t understand the interest in something that had
happened so long ago and he wasn’t willing to interrupt his own
musings for their sake. After a while he and I stopped discussing
the times he was bothered. We both knew what we thought and we
simply had nothing more to add. It became easiest to pretend
those incidents never happened and just blank them out.
"Roger may have been a bit selfish -- or rather self-absorbed -- but
when people called him a recluse they were really only projecting
their own disappointment. He knew what they wanted but he wasn’t
willing to give it to them.
"Roger was unique; they didn’t have the vocabulary to describe him
and so they pigeonholed him. If only they had seen him with children.
His nieces and nephews, the kids in the road -- he would have them
in stitches. He could talk at length and he played with words in
a way that children instinctively appreciated, even if it sometimes
threw adults."
He was quite a sharp dresser, too. "He didn’t follow fashion -- he
just bought what he liked for himself -- but he liked to look
presentable. His clothes were always clean and pressed. In fact,
if he had an obsession, it was with that."
Barrett suffered from stomach ulcers for 30 years -- which he
managed by drinking milk -- and also developed diabetes. "But he
simply refused to admit it to himself. For days at a time he
wouldn’t take his pills -- which, being a nurse, could have
worried me. But to be honest, it can’t have been very severe
because he never showed any ill effects."
What he did show, she said, was love: "I gave it to him and he
gave it to me. He was incredibly supportive when our mother died.
And in the past week I’ve been surprised to learn how popular
he was with the local tradesmen. He was simply a very lovable person.
"He showed his personality in lots of different ways -- which
some outsiders found confusing -- but underneath he was solid
as a rock. It may have been a responsibility to look out for him,
but it was never a burden."
Reproduction under Tim Willis permission