Marcelo Paulo de Souza is a Brazilian Pink Floyd collector and aficionado who has lived in London for over 30 years. Marcelo kindly supplied this report from a very special event this week in the south of England, with pictures by Marcelo and also Beata Kruczkowska. Our thanks to both of them!

Twenty years after Syd Barrett's death, and in the year he would have turned 80, a grassroots music venue on the south coast of England is keeping his memory alive in the most literal way possible: with the painted floorboards from his London flat on display for anyone to come and see. I was at the venue on Sunday 5 July, the day of the unveiling, where I recorded video interviews with the people at the heart of the celebration.

The Piper in St Leonards-on-Sea has just turned seven years old. Its name comes from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Pink Floyd's debut album, and the location is no accident. Hastings Pier, directly across from the venue, was where Syd played his final gig with Pink Floyd on 20 January 1968.

Owner Chris Barnett, who I interviewed outside the venue on the day of the unveiling, moved to the coast from Hackney in London, where he had watched pub after pub close down. When he found this beautiful building standing empty and derelict, he decided to turn it into a new grassroots music venue: a home for bands, DJs, and what he calls the collective psychedelic alternative community. The pub was called the Norman Arms. He renamed it The Piper. Even the Wi-Fi password is a nod to the album.

Eight days for Syd

This week the venue is running The Madcap's Lasting Laugh, an eight-day celebration of Syd's life, marking the 20th anniversary of his passing on 7 July and the unveiling of his iconic floorboards. The opening weekend brought Twink (the drummer known for his work with the Pretty Things and the Pink Fairies, and a member of Stars, the short-lived supergroup he formed with Syd in Cambridge in 1972), along with talks, a film screening and panel discussions. Still to come are Ozric Tentacles, Bernard Butler, a Sydfest all-dayer of psychedelic bands, and the Mystery Jets.

The guest list reads like a who's who of Syd's world. Jenny Spires, Syd's former girlfriend from the Cambridge days. Ian Barrett, Syd's nephew. Jerry Shirley, who played on both The Madcap Laughs and Barrett, and who performed alongside David Gilmour at Syd's 1970 show at Kensington Olympia. Biographer Rob Chapman. And Jill Drower: former habitué of the UFO Club, member of the Exploding Galaxy, the radical performance art collective of 1967-69, and film maker. Her film about the group, Exploders, was screened at the venue with her own introduction.

Twink, Ian Barrett, Rob Chapman and other guests also came together for Shine On You Crazy Diamond, a panel discussion and celebration held on Monday 6 July, the eve of the anniversary, followed by the Exploders screening.

A word with Syd's nephew

I spoke with Ian Barrett, Syd's nephew, on the day of the unveiling. For him it was a long time coming. When the boards first went to auction, everyone feared they would be bought by some millionaire and never be seen again. So, he told me, it's lovely that they are not lost. The boards are symbolic of Syd's creativity, and for most people they are something of an artwork in their own right. Now they are finally here, to be seen every day, hopefully forever, in a place where people can sit, look at them and enjoy the music, an hour and a half from London and easy to reach for people coming from abroad.

On Syd's legacy, Ian was modest: lots of people in the family are doing it, he said. They all just wanted to get involved and do something to keep it going. There is plenty coming in October in Cambridge: a concert (already sold out), an art exhibition, and a tribute album, and Ian is helping with both the exhibition and the album. The covers are quite mixed, he told me: a mix of acts, with female voices and young voices, which is exactly what the family wanted. He has heard most of them, and there is some good new music on there. "Buy that when it's out." There is more about those celebrations at the end of this article.

The floorboards

The centrepiece, though, is upstairs. When the famous painted floorboards from Syd's Earls Court flat came up for auction, Chris admitted to me he had no interest in buying them at first. "Everyone was like, Chris, you own The Piper. You've got to have the floorboards."

The original plan was to lay them on the stage, so that bands would play standing on Syd's floor. But when the boards arrived (in the back of a transit van, chopped in half), they were far too fragile to be walked on. Ideas for protecting them were discussed, like sealing them with lacquer or covering them with perspex, but none of them would work. So the floor plan was dropped. Instead, the boards are displayed around the room: behind the stage, by the DJ booth, and hopefully soon on the ceiling, where everyone can see them, enjoy them and pay their respects.

Piecing them back together took five days of detective work. Chris and his team matched the boards using original nail holes, splodges of paint, the difference between Victorian diagonal saw cuts and modern multi-tool cuts, photographs from the auction house and estate agents, Mick Rock's photos, Storm Thorgerson's photos, and a high-definition scan of the Madcap Laughs album cover, zoomed in far enough to see where the joins in the floor were.

Some boards puzzled them at first: a set left completely white. According to Jenny Spires, that was the undercoat, still there from when Syd and Duggie Fields first moved into the flat. Storm Thorgerson had told Syd before the album shoot that his boards were in a mess and needed repainting, which is why some boards have several coats and others just one.

Chris told me the reaction from visitors has been moving to watch. People stand in silence. Some have been in tears.

The boards were officially unveiled on Sunday 5 July, with speeches from Jenny Spires and Chris Barnett and the ribbon cut by Jenny, and a one-time-only chance to see the full set laid out in place, with timed photo slots for fans.

The programme

Already happened

Saturday 4 July: Syd's Last Stand. An evening with Syd Barrett biographer Rob Chapman in discussion with Tony Higgins. I also interviewed Rob Chapman at the venue. That conversation, covering his biography of Syd, his lyrics book with David Gilmour and his novel, deserves its own article, coming soon.

Sunday 5 July: The unveiling. Speeches from Jenny Spires and Chris Barnett, ribbon-cutting by Jenny, and a one-time-only chance to see the full set of floorboards in place.

Sunday 5 July: Twink plus David Catlin-Birch. Music and memories with Syd's old friend Twink (the Pink Fairies, Tomorrow and the Pretty Things).

Monday 6 July: Shine On You Crazy Diamond. A panel discussion and celebration with old friends, family members and bandmates, including Twink, Ian Barrett and Rob Chapman, plus a screening of Exploders introduced by director Jill Drower.

Still to come

Thursday 9 July: Ozric Tentacles. One of the most influential bands to come out of the UK festival scene, formed at the Stonehenge Free Festival in 1983.

Friday 10 July: Bernard Butler plus support. The Brit and Grammy Award winning musician who formed Suede in 1989.

Saturday 11 July , 5pm to midnight: Sydfest. Featuring The Black Doldrums, Index For Working Music, The Embrooks and The Great Silkie, plus DJ sets from Telegram Sam and Charlie (Toy).

Sunday 12 July: Mystery Jets. Known for eccentric songwriting and a blend of indie rock, psychedelic pop and progressive influences. Expect the hits, plus a few very special Syd Barrett covers.

Visiting: where it is and how to get there

Fans from all over the world have long made the trip to Cambridge, Syd's home town, to walk in his footsteps. Now there is a second destination on the map: St Leonards-on-Sea.

St Leonards-on-Sea is a seaside town in East Sussex, on the south coast of England. It sits directly next to Hastings. The two towns grew into each other long ago and share the same seafront, so in practice they are one place. Walk along the promenade and you pass from one into the other without noticing.

In recent years St Leonards has earned a reputation as "the new Margate". Like Margate in Kent (the seaside town reborn through art galleries, vintage shops and a wave of creative people moving out of London), St Leonards has become a home for artists, musicians and independent businesses. Norman Road, where The Piper stands, is at the heart of it, lined with galleries, antique shops and cafés. The result is a faded Victorian seaside town coming back to life through music and art, which makes it a fitting home for Syd's floorboards.

The Piper is at 1 Norman Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, TN37 6NH, a short walk from the seafront. The nearest train station is St Leonards Warrior Square, just a few minutes' walk from the venue. Trains run regularly from London (Charing Cross or London Bridge) and the journey takes about one hour and forty-five minutes. Full event listings and tickets are on the venue's website, thepiper.club, and The Piper's Facebook page is also very informative and kept up to date with news and events.

From the venue, it is a short walk along the seafront to Hastings Pier, the place where Syd played his final gig with Pink Floyd in January 1968. The floorboards are on permanent display upstairs at The Piper, and The Madcap's Lasting Laugh runs until Sunday 12 July.

As one of the people behind the floorboards purchase agreed from the start: these were not bought to be locked away in a private collection. They were laid out for the fans, and for the community.

And then, to Cambridge

The celebrations don't end in St Leonards. On 10 October 2026 (World Mental Health Day), Cambridge Corn Exchange hosts A Celebration of Syd Barrett, an official 80th birthday tribute concert in Syd's home city, at the very venue where he gave his final live performance in February 1972. The show, already sold out, features Kula Shaker, Soft Machine, Men on the Border and more, with a liquid light show in the spirit of the sixties. A tribute album, Clowns and Jugglers: The Songs of Syd Barrett, follows on 9 October, with contributions from David Gilmour, Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets and the Mystery Jets, and all proceeds go to mental health charities.

There is something fitting in the geography of it all. Hastings Pier saw Syd's last show with Pink Floyd. The Corn Exchange saw his last show of all. In 2026, both ends of that story are being honoured, and between them, on a striped floor in St Leonards, the madcap's laugh is lasting still.