Eric Clapton’s tragic final promise before his little boy fell 53 floors to his death

The musician’s world was upended in 1991 when his young son Conor, aged just four at the time, fell 53 floors to his death from a New York apartment. Eric would go on to write the song Tears in Heaven in tribute to his little boy

Eric Clapton is regarded as one of the most acclaimed musicians in rock and roll – but his incredible life has been marred by great tragedy.

On March 20, 1991, his four-year-old son Conor tragically died after falling from the 53rd-floor window of a New York City apartment. And just 24 hours before the shocking incident, Eric had made a poignant promise to his ex-girlfriend Lory del Santo – Conor’s mother.

Italian actress Lory had custody of Conor following the couple’s split. Eric arrived at the high-rise apartment to take out his young son for the day – it would be the first time he had ever taken Conor out by himself, and he had bought tickets for the circus at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island.

According to biographer Philip Norman, “That sawdust-scented afternoon showed him what he’d been missing. When they returned to the apartment, with Conor chattering excitedly about the clowns and elephants, Eric told Lory that, from now on, he intended to be a proper father”.

Tragically, he didn’t get the chance. The next day, Eric and his son planned to visit the Bronx Zoo, followed by lunch at an Italian restaurant.

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“In the morning, as mother and son waited for Clapton to pick Conor up from the apartment, a janitor arrived to clean the windows. Lory was in the bathroom and the boy was in the care of a nanny – but careering around in a state of high excitement, impatient to see his ‘ Papa ‘ again.

” The janitor had been working on the cantilevered windows in the living room, one of which still hung open. He called out to the nanny to watch the child, but before she could react, Conor dashed past her, jumped up onto the low window-ledge where he’d normally press his nose against the glass to gaze out – and disappeared. “

Eric and Lory had briefly been engaged, but by 1991, they had ended their romance and she had struck up a romance with Italian film producer Silvio Sardi, owner of the apartment in the Galleria building in New York.

From there, Lory had to call Eric to tell him the devastating news. In a state of shock, the musician could only ask, ‘ Are you sure? ‘ He then walked the seven blocks to the Galleria, hoping there must have been some mistake.

Eric later told PEOPLE:” I remember putting the phone down and calmly walking from my hotel to that place as if nothing happened. And I walked past the street and, this is a terrible thing of shame for me, which I’ll never, ever perhaps recover from and seeing that, seeing a crowd of people and a paramedic van and knowing that he was there]trying to be resuscitated] and walking by, I’ll punish myself forever about why didn’t I run? Why didn’t I go to see him? … the truth is I couldn’t. I was so frightened. “

Conor was laid to rest in the churchyard of St Mary Magdalen in Ripley, Surrey, a few hundred yards from Eric’s own birthplace. The funeral took place on March 28, two days before Eric’s 46th birthday, with mourners including George Harrison, Phil Collins and many other faces from the world of music.

In unthinkable pain and grief, Eric retreated from the limelight and his career in music to piece together how to move forwards. He turned his grief into the heart-wrenching ballad Tears in Heaven, which was released in January 1992. It remains Eric’s best-selling single in the United States.

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Source: Mirror