Clapton_ The Autobiography - Eric Clapton [137]
The final leg of the tour was in Japan, and Melia and Julie joined me for part of this. We really didn’t like being apart at this time, especially as we were both learning so much about being parents. Graham was a great help to us, as he has always been. He is tremendous around kids, firm but loving, and ours think the world of him. It was tough for me, trying to do both roles, and I knew it wasn’t a pattern I would want to repeat again too often, though of course we have done it since many times. Maybe it was just that Julie was so young and we were so green.
Halfway through the Japan tour, during a long stint at the Budokan, I got the news that George Harrison had died of cancer on November 29. I had been following his condition through one of our closest mutual friends, Brian Roylance, who had been spending more and more time with him as his health gradually failed. The last time I had seen him was in late 1999, shortly after he was attacked so brutally at Friar Park. The three of us had sat in his kitchen as he relived the night that the crazy guy, Michael Abram, had come after him with a knife, believing himself to be on a “mission from God” to kill him.
George was still very disturbed and didn’t seem to know where to go with his life. I could only use my own predicament with addiction as a reference, encouraging the possible use of some kind of support system, although maybe that’s how he saw us. I know that with Brian, he had the best friend a man could ever have. I only wish I could have been more help. We had an opportunity back in 1991, when Olivia and Brian had tried to rekindle his interest in performing live by having him join our show. We had put together a package, using all my existing touring paraphernalia, and toured Japan. It was a fine program, well rehearsed with great songs and tremendous musicianship, but I knew his heart wasn’t in it. He didn’t really seem to like playing live, so it did nothing for him, except maybe give him a chance to see how much he was loved, both by his fans and by us.
Back home from Japan in December, Melia and I arranged with Chris Elson, the Ripley parson, for Julie to be christened. We had also been talking to him about the different ways we could get married. It was really important for us to have as private a function as we could, since Julie’s birth had already made us a target for the paparazzi, so the normal wedding processes, putting up the banns and so on, were completely out of the question. Chris had an idea, which we both loved, even though it would take careful planning. We invited our closest family members and a select little group of friends to come to Julie’s christening service, and on New Year’s Day 2002, we gathered in the church of St. Mary Magdalen in Ripley, which already held so many memories for me, and baptized our six-month-old girl.
Melia’s mum and dad were there, and my auntie Sylvia, and the godmothers and godfathers. It was a simple, moving service, and at the end Chris announced, “At this point there is usually a closing prayer, but the parents have asked for something different,” and he started, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here together, to join the hand of this man, and this woman, in holy matrimony.” You can hear a pin drop anyway in that ancient old building, but this was like two thousand pins dropping. It was fantastic. I looked around at the shocked and stunned faces of my in-laws, family, and friends, and realized that they had no idea what was happening. We had succeeded in keeping it a complete secret. It was the perfect way to do it, and so romantic, we couldn’t have planned it better, and not a journalist in sight. After posing for Chip, a dear friend of ours who took our wedding photos outside the church, we drove home to Hurtwood and listened to Stevie