Jenny Fabian: I knew the others but they were absolutely nothing compared to Syd. His words and music were the Pink Floyd and I've never been interested in them since. Nothing ever reached the heights of that first album, which was mad and mysterious....like him.

An extensive collection of articles, interviews and information about the founder of Pink Floyd.

As a documentary film-maker, UK-based director John Edginton has a history of exploring the impact of mental illness. In Australia, he is best known for Deep Sleep, his documentary insight into the Chelmsford Hospital scandal. The desire to make Pink Floyd and the Syd Barrett Story, Edginton says, sprang from a fascination with Barrett, whose last-known recorded works were essentially the documentation of the steady descent into madness.

He goes into the garden and stretches out on an old wooden seat. 'Once you're into something...' he says, looking very puzzled. He stops. 'I don't think I'm easy to talk about. I've got a very irregular head. And I'm not anything that you think I am anyway.'

Some people think Barrett suffers from Asperger's Syndrome... 'I think the word 'recluse' is probably emotive. It would be truer to say that he enjoys his own company now, rather than that of others.'

Rest easy Syd Barrett, who has died at the age of 60. When the news broke earlier today there were a few startled looks around the Guardian office. "Syd Barrett?" gasped one of my co-workers. "I thought he died years ago." This, I suspect, is an impression he would have been comfortable with. The sardonic boy genius who founded Pink Floyd was one of rock music's more notable casualties; laid low by mental illness at the peak of his fame. While it has never been established whether Barrett suffered from schizophrenia, or Asperger Syndrome, or a combination of the two brought on by drug use, he never fully recovered. He spent his last three decades as a virtual recluse at his parents' home in Cambridge, apparently too scared to step onto the street. In the meantime he eked out a living on the royalties from 1967's Piper at the Gates of Dawn and his brace of anguished solo albums from the early 1970s.

Roger Keith Barrett (born January 6, 1946 in Cambridge, England), known as Syd, was one of the founder members of the 1960s psychedelic rock group Pink Floyd.

A treasure-trove of articles, images, lyrics, etc. on the life of Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett.

When he's healthy, Syd lives a peaceful, comfortable life in one of a secluded row of semi-detached houses on the outskirts of Cambridge. His earnigns from his recordings are substantial and he wants for very little, though he chooses a modest existence.

The received wisdom is that you don't disturb him.The last interview he gave was in 1971, and from then until now, there are only about 20 recorded encounters of any kind.