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By the age of 23, Pink Floyd's poetic frontman had changed music forever – then the drugs unloosed something inside him

The diary entry for the day his father, Max, died read: "Dear Dad died today." Syd Barrett was 15. In a letter to his girlfriend Libby three days later, he said: "I could write a book about his merits. Perhaps I will some time." He never got to write it. Later this month, Omnibus Press, in collaboration with Barrett's estate, will publish the late genius's collected lyrics in an authorised form for the first time. But who was Syd Barrett? He was the young visionary who wrote eight of the 11 tracks on Pink Floyd's debut, The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. Released in 1967, the album is the apog...