Eric Clapton

I had never been allowed to go on tour with my husband George Harrison,so had no idea what to expect when I left him to join Eric Clapton on his 1974US tour. But standing at the side of the stagenight after night, musicexploding in my head and vibrating through every part of me, was an incrediblesensation - deeply sexy.

Looking out at the thousands of screaming people who had come to seeEric, myEric, was mind-blowing, especially seeing their reaction every time he playedthe opening chords of Layla, the song he had written to woo me away fromGeorge.

The tour was gruelling: 26 shows,from coast to coast, playing to hugeaudiences. I found it exhausting. For Eric, after three years of heroinaddiction, it was shattering.

He coped by drinking. Eric had moved from heroin to alcoholwithout blinking.He began in the morning and drank all day until four o'clock when RogerForrester, his minder and later his manager, made him stop. He reckoned that ifhe could stop Eric drinking atfour, he had enough time to sober him up beforethe show.

Eric's poison was Courvoisier and 7Up but after four, Roger would give him coldtea and 7Up and by that stage in the day he couldn't tell thedifference.

The plan didn't always work. There were times when Eric was so drunk on stagethat he played lying flat on his back.

After the tour we took a holiday in Montego Bay in Jamaica. Everymorning thegardener would arrive with the biggest, fattest joint for Eric, and they wouldspend the day smoking dope and drinking. Eric would pass out in the evening.The maid would ask: 'Dinner for oneagain, madam?'

Back at Hurtwood Edge, Eric's Surrey manor house, I learnt about his othereccentricities. Some made me laugh - particularly his need to get into theright mood to watch TV. When a Testmatch was on, he would change into hiscricket whites, and if he was planning to watch a film like The Godfather he'dinsist on pasta for supper.

But he had no social graces when it came to meal...