Photographs of Syd on his habitual shopping rounds at this time show him looking shockingly gaunt, and for several months leading up to his 60th birthday Rosemary noted with some concern his falling weight. For years Barrett had been plagued by gastric ulcers and was therefore familiar with their unpleasant symptoms including stomach pains, digestive problems and poor appetite. His elder brother Alan – whose sax-playing in a skiffle group first persuaded Syd to take up the ukulele at the age of 12 – believes this long-term, but non life-threatening malaise might have masked the onset of the pancreatic cancer which was to prove terminal with shocking swiftness...

Click here to read the extract in full - it gives a good flavour of the rest of the book, and details Syd's very sad passing and his laying to rest.

To mark its publication, we have a copy signed by the authors to give away to one lucky Brain Damage visitor. You need to answer the following simple questions correctly:

   1. What was Barrett's real full name?
   2. Where, and on what date, was he born?

and then email your answers, together with your postal address, to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it by 11:59pm (UK time) on September 30th. Please note that no correspondence will be entered into, and that the competition mailbox is unmonitored - entries will be checked on October 1st, a winner picked at random by an independent party, and the winner announced here shortly after.

NOTE: COMPETITION NOW CLOSED, AND THE WINNER BEING PICKED

Our thanks to Pete and Mike for their generosity, and good luck to all those who enter the competition.