Syd remembered differently by his sister

'My brother was not a recluse or a burden'

WHEN the death of 60-yearold 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.

She described Roger, who lived in his mother's old home in Cherry Hinton, Cambridge, 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.



Rosemary is adamant he neither suffered from mental illness nor received treatment for it at any time since they resumed regular contact 25 years ago.

"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.
"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 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.

"Roger was unique; they didn't have the vocabulary to describe him and so they pigeon-holed 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.

Rosemary says he was also quite a sharp dresser.

"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."

As for his physical health, Barrett suffered from stomach ulcers for 30 years — which he managed by drinking copious amounts of milk — and also developed B-type diabetes.

"But he simply refused to admit it to himself," said Rosemary. "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."