In a new interview with The Independent, Polly Samson revealed the condition she set for David Gilmour to get married.
“I was having a difficult time with my pop group, my relationships, all those sorts of things,” Gilmour said of his condition at the time. “In the early Eighties, I hit a really torturous time; I didn’t really notice if I was out of control, but I probably was.”
The rocker added, “I won’t call you a gift, Polly, but something came along into my life that was real, and she wouldn’t stand for it [drugs]. I just needed a little kick, really, in order to put it behind me.”
“I couldn’t do otherwise,” Samson stated after Gilmour. “I was a single mother. It was, for me, non-negotiable, and I made that clear.”
“There aren’t many women who would have the strength that Polly had to deal with it,” David admitted. “It really was, ‘If you do that again, I am out of here,’” Samson shared the ultimatum he gave Gilmour.
In the rest of the chat, Samson also shared a story, “At a charity dinner at one of those big hotels on Grosvenor Place [in Belgravia], David disappeared in the middle of dinner to the loo with his then manager, and when he came back, I knew what he had been doing, as it was something he promised he wouldn’t do; very early on he promised me.”
Polly continued, “I just said, ‘Have you just taken cocaine?’ And as he can’t lie to me, I had a glass of champagne in my hand and I went to throw it in his face. But he ducked. I got Douglas Adams (author of ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’), and I was so appalled at what I had done, I ran out.”
“The story gets worse. I ran down Park Lane, really upset, and he was scampering after me, saying, ‘I’ll never do it again,’” Samson added. “‘Too late, too late, you’ve blown it.’ I was gathering speed, and then the police see this man following after me and they ask if he is bothering me.”
She then noted, “I said yes, and they went to grab him, but then the policeman said, ‘You’re Dave Gilmour.’ At that, we both start laughing, and it was then so funny. It kind of saved the situation as I found it both awful and funny.”
That was the last time Gilmour used cocaine. As for Samson, she was in a bad state when they met—very ill, almost broke, and raising a child alone. She turned to Gilmour for help, and he took care of her and her child.