Music - Syd Barrett: A Neighbour's Point of View

[enquirewithin]

This piece comes form a blog called Knol. It claims to have been written by Syd Barrett's neighbour. It's well known that Syd Barrett became a recluse (the best Pink Floyd was produced with him). This may or may not be a true refection of what happened to him. The author doesn't seem very literate themselves. If this is what Syd was like, it would appear to be due to inherent mental issues not LSD or cannabis which caused it. He is likely to have had asperger's syndrome (autism). Having known several autistic children, I think this is quite likely. He also had diabetes type B later on his life and if he didn't take medication properly, that would have had some negative effects on his state too. For a more kindly, balanced look at Barrett try here.

pinkfloyd member syd barrett -the truth on rock star syd barrett of pinkfloyd : what drug taking did to syd

Writer: Anonymous (David Sore?)

Syd barrett was my neighbour from 1981-2006, i was 5 years old when he moved in next door in cambridge england to live in his mothers home. It wasnt long before the severity of his mental problems began shocking me. He attacked his own mother sometime around 1983/4 and she had to call the police and he was taken away in restraints to a mental hospital. He was let out but his mum couldnt live in her own home with him due to fear so she moved out leaving syd to live on his own ( not as some books say till she died in 1991). Syd screamed in extreme rages lasting for 20-40 minutes many nights, often of wanting to kill pinkfloyd's roger waters. Syd became a pyromaniac burning every tree and bush in what had been a stunning garden previously owned my someone who worked at cambridges univercity botanical gardens. Syd smashed his own furniture and windows so many times he kept a firm who replaced his windows in business single handedly pretty much...for me as a young child this was spine chilling i simply knew syd as roger the mad person living next door. Syd had no friends ever and was a complete recluse something his family deny for god knows what reason. I heard syd speaking in rhyme only when i was punching my punchbag..maybe it sounded like a drum to him who knows but it wasnt like he was rapping just speaking fast in messed up rhymes. He detested fans bothering him so my family protyected him by telling them to leave if they turned up which occasionaly they would. Reports syd spent his time quietly painting and gardening are far off the mark..proof is when he died in july 2006 his family sold his possessions at auction in cambridge..he had very little to show for 25 years as a recluse. As for being a gardner ! it was full of weeds and unkept in the 80's he burnt everything down in numerous massive bonfires which he watched close up..prooving his dilated pupils frog lsd and cannabis use werent light sensitive..he drew his curtains nearly all the time from paranoia not light sensitivity. Syds family say he was never mentally ill in a book and he was not scizophrenic... to me massive lies.

before syd died his brothers and sisters helped themselves to syds money..over £1.2 million plus the £360k from selling his home plus the proceeds of the auction of his home made furniture, as syd was mentally ill the law in the uk allows familys to take someones money even though syd didnt make a will. I wonder if syd was even told he had that much money seeing as he lived a life like someone on an old age pension..he even had to make his own furniture including a wooden bed..surely a millionare should be buying furniture if he knew he had the money??

in december 2006 a mail on sunday ( uk newspaper) article gave my thoughts on syd to its millions of readers, i followed up with some comments on www.beingahuman.blogspot.com .All i want is to warn people the horrors poor syd went through due to drugs..he used lots of lsd and cannabis and by 1968 he was loosing it and was kicked out of pinkfloyd after there first album was released. he spent the 70's in london lying around unable to funtion as a normal human being and ran out of money. So he came to live with his mum, its reported he spent 18months in a mental hospital im not sure the exact dates..anyone that does please contact me via my website im guessing it was around 1980-1981. due to syds screaming and shouting when i was very young he physically and emotionally scared me ithe effects im still dealing with id say he should have been in a mental hospital for the 1980's no one in his condition behaving as he did should be in the community unsupervised. Quite how mental health services, the council and the government allowed syd to live as he did is unbelievable . I have 25 years of knowledge about syd barrett no one not even his family could know ( well how could they they abandoned him his sister rosemary sometimes took him to a local supermarket and diy store in her car) other than that syd cycled occasionally to local shops for his endless supply of tobacco. Syd was the slowest cyclist ever his mind clearly unable to coordinate peddling very well. Syd is the ultimate poster child for why you should not use illegal drugs..forget modern idiots like amy winehouse and pete doherty , if the government had used syd to show what happens to drug users im sure a huge number would never try them. Syds 3 biographers recorded well what happened to syd from birth to leaving pinkfloyd, his time in the 70's is very vaigue and from 1981 onwards theres barely a thing..because syd was a recluse living on his own, i grew up next door to him and knew him for 25 years, if i was prime minister id bring back the death penalty for drug dealers and make drug users recycle rubbish as punishment for rotting their minds doing something illegal and then needing help at tax payers expense. So stay well away from drugs they seriously damage the brain and can cause talent people to completely ruin their lives.

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There is more of this ranting elsewhere. The writer sounds one short of a dozen himself.

by all means leave a comment on this article ( mine and this observer one) if you include your email address in a comment this would be online for all to see..and you'll get loads of spam emails . i have spam filters so if you want to email me do so my email address is on this site.

UPDATE on 27 July 2007 i have published a comment i got from someone telling me to read a book called a fish out of water which has comments from Syd Barrett's sister in it... quite frankly in a way i agree maybe Syd Barrett's serious mental problems were not just simply schizophrenia but some of his behaviour was very close to this, his brain was seriously messed up by drugs to such an extent a simple label of 1 mental illness may not be entirely accurate. But please don't just believe any statements just because they come from a family member ( no offence rosemary ) . Open your mind and think about what you would tell the media if your family member went mad..ever heard of only giving out half truths???
Update done august 2007.. to the fools who do not believe what i told a national newspaper please get a life Syd Barrett hardly spoke to anyone thanks to his messed up brain..most probably due to his cannabis use in the 60s..its now scientifically proven cannabis causes people to become catatonic. If you still think i am some how attacking Syd Barrett your extremely stupid and probably have an IQ of under 75. Syd Barrett's crazy nasty behaviour in the 1980's..and i mean every year was like having the neighbor from hell he should have been in a mental hospital for his own sake let alone those who lived so close and saw and heard all his insane goings on. I think there will always be extremely stupid people when it comes to celebrities, no matter what truth is told about someone famous there will always be morons who refuse to believe the truth.. why can't they get a life? how can they possibly know whats true or not about a man they have never met, never helped in any way while he lived a terrible existence due to drugs, or never lived next to during the time he was at his worst in terms of his severe mental problems? If you care about Syd Barrett ad mental problems i suggest you go help out at a drug prevention charity or mental health charity or go see a mental hospital and see people messed up by drugs...i still expect some idiots will write comments to me saying how can you say this..what can i do? the worlds full of stupid people..many stupid due to their drug use or because their parents used drugs and its affected them via their genes. Ive highlighted the truth of Syd Barrett in a newspaper, explaining his horrible life after PinkFloyd and i have done immense good already i have told many millions of people via the media what drugs can do to a man, and i am 100% sure ill have prevented many people from trying drugs...to the very few morons being nasty to me in pathetic anonymous comments ( they cant even have the balls to show who they really are, or haven't the computer skills to figure out how to show their real name ) carry on in your stupid dream world imagining Syd Barrett lived a normal life, carry on believing the cover up told to biographers that he more or less lived a normal life, to the vast majority of people who can tell i am telling the truth please could you tell me what can i say to turn the morons who don't believe I'm trying to help prevent drug induced mental illness into accepting the truth?

update on January 21 2009, i just had an anonymous comment from someone claiming to have known me all my life ( which is clearly very inaccurate ) they say "would i know enough about you to write a book" ? No you wouldn't. You certainly wouldn't have enough for a book as you have never been in the situation i was in with Syd Barrett..you see you have no idea whats happened i only told you a tiny number of incidents, you have absolutely no idea what secrets i have to spill, fortunately for me my book publisher sees a huge market for my insights , so the fact you think no one would read it is a sad pathetic comment coming from a place of either anger towards me for other reasons or jealousy or both. The person who wrote to me clearly has a grudge and is an ex friend, i know who you are and i know all to well about the mental illness you suffered from drug use, i truly hope you get over the fact i cant be your friend again and i hope you move on with your life.

update Feb 4 2009 spud your old fsmail email doesnt exist anymore. You ignored my phone call to your vodaphone mobile. The police are now involved. I suggest you use www.joeapology.com to apologize to me . Let me know if you use this so i can go read what you have to say.
Update on April 9 2009 my reply to to the person saying when is your book out mister big mouth.... first its Mr not mister ( you spell like an old African friend of mine !, where are you and who are you?) ill answer you if you dont post anonymously

Update on April 26 2009 my reply to Mark Anglesey 's comment i got on April 26..well Mark what I've said in this blog isn't overly remarkable.. i agree ! I'm hardly going to give away the juicy info i have on here for free when im putting it all into a book...please use you brain more when analyzing information. His behaviour would get any one sectioned these days..but as a child id have had no idea about how to inform the authority's about someone behaving the way he did... so ill ask have your read the Mail on Sunday article?? that helps explain things a bit more than I've said on my blog. People who admire a "wayward lifestyle" as you put it maybe admire his hippy like existence but unfortunately have been severely mislead into believing he lived a sort of normal life...again read the newspaper article to get a glimpse of the real truth about what sort of things really happened. I couldn't care less if Syd Barrett fans are even told about my book..your missing the point, this isn't a book targeting PinkFloyd/Syd Barrett fans ! As for Roger Barrett's gardening your making me laugh..yet again i say read the mail on Sunday article or buy my book when its released..based on all your comments i wonder if your really called Mark Anglesey..i suspect your another Mark i know , a person with no friends holding a silly grudge against me who cant stand the fact i dont ever want to be his friend anymore due to his personality changing for the worse due to his drug use.

There are comments around the blogosphere such as:

For the record, I think this guy (David Sore) is a complete fraud. I'm an editor on Wikipedia (google it) and this guy repeatedly vandalized the Syd Barrett entry there in order to add SPAM links to his myspace and blog sites. He claims to have many more sordid stories abut "Crazy Syd Barrett" and will tell you them... for a price of course. Absolute rubbish. The guy is lower than scum.

[TheGreatHabiblious]

Im not saying that this guy didnt live next to Syd, but the fact that he likes to take the stance of a Dr. is disturbing. this guy is obviously no scholar and shouldnt think his thoughts are worthy of validity. he has clearly (tried) to diagnose Syd with varying mental disorders, though even he dosnt know what they are. seems kind of stupid to me. dont get me wrong, Im no Dr. either, but I dont pretend to be one on my blog...

[enquirewithin]

Whilst I can believe some of what the writer is saying, he is a real illogical ranter. (He has some nasty opinionated views about the death penalty on another blog.) He is not to be taken seriously but may offer some insights into the unfortunate Syd's life.