Rare Pink Floyd footage is found

Syd Barrett (third left) left Pink Floyd in 1967

Rare footage of Syd Barrett singing with Pink Floyd on the BBC One music show Top Of The Pops has been discovered after more than 40 years.

The damaged footage of the band playing See Emily Play has been restored and will now be screened for the first time since its initial 1967 broadcast.

Barrett, who died in 2006, left the group a year after it was recorded.

The British Film Institute will show the footage at its Missing Believed Wiped annual event on 9 January.

The Pink Floyd performance, on a one-inch, reel-to-reel tape, was discovered in a private collection.

It features two editions of TOTP from 6 and 27 July 1967, hosted by the late DJ Alan Freeman.

Steve Bryant, senior curator at the BFI, said: "This is an enormously significant discovery that will generate huge interest amongst music fans all over the world, even though the surviving material is in poor condition.

"Footage of Pink Floyd from this era is extremely rare."

BFI staff were "thrilled to have been given the opportunity to restore this recording, as much as has been possible, so that people can get a sense of this legendary appearance", he added.

TV recordings were often dumped or wiped in the 1960s and 1970s due to tape storage issues.

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