Pattie Boyd: I burst into tears when George died. Was I right to leave him?

In the final part of her gripping book, Pattie Boyd recalls her struggle to adapt to life outside the world of rock 'n' roll - and how she was shattered by George Harrison's death

It was hard to go from being a rock star's wife, with someone to take care of everything, to being an ex with nothing.

Leaving Eric Clapton's Surrey manor house for a tiny rented flat in London in 1987 was a comedown, but my self-esteem was so low I didn't question it.

I had been an alcoholic's carer for so long that I had forgotten how to live for myself.

I was ignorant about the practical, everyday things that everyone else took for granted. I didn't know I had to buy a tax disc for my car, or a television licence. I didn't know about water bills or rates, and I'd never paid an electricity or telephone bill.

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It had been 25 years since I'd sat on a bus or found my way around the Underground, but after I was arrested for drink-driving and banned for a year I had to use public transport.

I had to ask a friend to show me how it worked: stations and ticket-buying had changed since the Sixties and I was frightened to go alone, afraid people would wonder why I was travelling on the Tube.

My confidence was shot.

Every journey was a trial. At every station enormous posters of Eric would be staring at me from the walls, up and down the escalators and along the tunnels. I would go into shops and they would be playing Eric's music and the tears would start to flow.

I felt as though I was losing my sanity.

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Meeting friends for lunch, I felt as though I was in a bubble: I had nothing in common with their world of husbands and children. I could hardly speak, and if anyone spoke to me I was lost for words and the tears would come.

I thought alcohol might dull the pain, and cocaine ease the depression, but all they did was make matters worse.

I was having a breakdown.

I was grieving - not just over the loss of my marriage to Eric but finally, after all these years, the loss of my marriage to George Harrison. I had gone straight from George to Eric without taking a breath, and had always wondered whether I had done the right thing.

One day I picked up the phone and rang an old friend from my modelling days, Amanda Lear. She was Salvador Dali's muse and living in the south of France.

"Amanda, hello," I said.

"It's Pattie. I used to be Pattie Boyd."

"You still are!"

"Oh - am I? I suppose I am."

The process of building myself up again, reconstructing a degree of self-esteem, was slow. I went to parties where people didn't want to talk to anyone unless they were going somewhere fast.

It was the late Eighties and the idea of someone like me saying to them with a big smile, "No, I don't do anything" was not what they wanted to hear. I felt useless, as though I had been in a dream all these years and had achieved nothing.

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I was friends with a property developer called Rod Weston. He had recently split from his fiancee and embarked on a series of disastrous affairs. He would chat through each one with me.

When Phil Collins invited me to the premiere of Buster in 1988, I invited Rod. He was comfortable to be with - and he was very good-looking. He came with me to many other parties, and afterwards he occasionally came back to my flat. I'd go to bed and he'd be asleep on the sofa in the morning.

Then one night, after about a year of this, when we got back to my flat

I said: "Come on, come to bed."

Almost the next day he started to move his clothes in. I didn't say anything because it was nice to have him around.

With Rod in my life I felt better about myself. He's nine years younger than I am and when he was growing up, Julie Christie and I had been his idols. I felt as though I was slowly crawling out of a dark hole and it was wonderful to feel the warming rays of the sun on my back.

But curiously, for about three or four years after Rod and I started seeing each other, I dreamt about going back to Eric. It was bizarre to have the same dream in such detail like that over so many years.

I gave up my London flat and we spent weekdays at Rod's place in Kensington and weekends at the West Sussex cottage Eric bought me in 1995.

Rod liked to drink, but his capacity didn't come anywhere near Eric's. It was social drinking - and Rod was social every day, usually at lunchtime and in the evenings.

He had a huge number of friends and between us we had more invitations than we could possibly accept, but Rod wanted to go to everything. At first it was fun. I loved going out, meeting people, but when we had done that every night of the week in London, I began to feel I'd like a rest at weekends.

Not Rod.

He wanted big lunch and supper parties. Much as I adore cooking and entertaining, by the time we went back to London I was worn out.

My relationship with him eventually ran its course.

He was getting angry with me over the slightest thing and was drinking far too much.

I once said to him: "I hate the way you get drunk. I have lived with an alcoholic. You're just like Eric."

Rod just smiled. He thought I was complimenting him.

I had grown up at last.

That was not the life I wanted any more. We argued for weeks until finally I said: "That's it. I don't want you to come to the cottage any more. We're no longer going out together."

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I didn't want to cut him out of my life, just change the nature of our relationship. And it worked. We're still the best of friends.

I stayed friendly with George, too.

Indeed, the first Christmas after I'd left him, in 1974, just as Eric and I were sitting down to lunch, George burst in, uninvited. He had some wine and Christmas pudding with us. I couldn't believe how friendly he and Eric were towards each other.

The sad thing was, I realised later, he wasn't doing anything on Christmas Day and must have been lonely.

Not long afterwards he met Olivia Arias, who was to become his second wife, and from then on things were easier.

We didn't speak on the phone much, but we saw each other from time to time at parties.

He had become almost an older brother to me, someone to whom I could say anything. Every now and again he would send a little present - a tree for the garden or an ornament - and he invited Rod and me to his son Dhani's 18th birthday dinner, saying we had to be there: we were family.

One Christmas, we were at a lunch party given by Ringo and his wife Barbara.

Everyone was there, including George and Olivia, and Eric with a new girlfriend, Melia McEnery, a young, pretty American.

Eric was being unfriendly - I don't think he liked Rod, and Rod found him boring. We were at a table with Roger Taylor of Queen, and Mike Rutherford of Genesis.

I sat next to George and said: "God, George, Eric's being so weird, he can hardly say hello to me."

We had a good laugh, and when Eric and Melia were leaving, George said: "Eric, bye, man. Aren't you going to say goodbye to Pattie?"

It was as if in giving up drugs and alcohol, Eric had become a different person. Maybe he had always been shy, the alcohol a prop. He wasn't the vivacious man I'd known.

A few months later I heard George had cancer of the throat and then he was stabbed at his home by an intruder. George had heard glass breaking in the middle of the night. He woke Olivia and told her he was going to investigate. She tried to stop him but he insisted.

A man had smashed a window and come up the stairs holding a knife. George met him and there was a fight. Then Olivia appeared, picked up a lamp and hit the intruder over the head. George had been stabbed in the chest.

Eventually the police arrived and grabbed the man. He was a schizophrenic in his 30s with a thing about The Beatles.

George's lung was punctured but he was in hospital for only a few days. But I think the trauma had a much more lasting effect and weakened his body's ability to fight the cancer, and he went on to develop it in his lungs.

He died on November 29, 2001, a little less than two years after the attack.

I burst into tears when I heard he had died; I felt completely bereft. I couldn't bear the thought of a world without George.

When I left him for Eric, he had said that if things didn't work out, I could always come to him. It was such a selfless, loving thing to say.

Now that sense of security had gone. At the end I hadn't grasped how ill he was as I hadn't seen him for a few months. The last time had been at my cottage: he had phoned to say he was coming to Sussex to visit Ringo and Barbara and wanted to see me - I think he was curious to know where I was living. I was so glad we'd had that last meeting.

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I think I'll miss George for the rest of my life. I would have incredibly vivid dreams that he was alive. Then I would wake up and the reality would wash over me.

I regret allowing myself to be seduced by Eric and wish I had been stronger. I believed marriage was for ever, and when things were going wrong between George and me I should have gritted my teeth and worked through them.

And I wish I'd known I didn't have to be a doormat and allow both husbands to be so flagrantly faithless.

But if I had resisted Eric, I would never have known that incredible passion. I would never have been the inspiration for those beautiful songs Layla and Wonderful Tonight.

I accept that I paid a high price, but it was in proportion to the depth of the love he and I shared. I loved George deeply, too, but we were younger and it was a gentler love.

I don't regret leaving Eric. All I regret is that I had to. It was painful beyond belief, but if I had stayed, Eric might have drunk himself to death.

In October 2006, Bill Wyman was 70. He had a huge party at Ronnie Scott's and he took over the club. It was full of faces from the Sixties: all were friends, all looked as fabulous as they had 50 years ago.

Given my life over again, I wouldn't change anything.

I loved everything that went with rock 'n' roll. I loved being at the heart of such creativity and being young in such an exciting era. I have known some amazing people and had some unforgettable experiences.

Our generation really did lead a revolution: as teenagers we refused to conform and we're still refusing to do what's expected of us, still breaking the mould, still doing everything it takes to keep age at bay.

One day we might have to give in to sensible shoes - but don't hold your breath.

• Wonderful Today, by Pattie Boyd with Penny Junor, is published by Headline Review on August 23, priced £20. To order your copy at the special price of £18 with free p&p, call The Review Bookstore on 0845 606 4213.