{"id":552982,"date":"2026-03-20T14:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/552982\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T14:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T14:34:09","slug":"thin-lizzys-phil-lynott-my-chaotic-life-as-his-girlfriend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/552982\/","title":{"rendered":"Thin Lizzy’s Phil Lynott: My chaotic life as his girlfriend"},"content":{"rendered":"

A decade ago, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of his death, I interviewed the only woman the young Philip Lynott<\/a> ever really loved: Belfast-born Gale Claydon. Gale had always refused requests for interviews about her relationship with Phil. Her name rarely appeared in any Thin Lizzy<\/a> biographies, except Phil\u2019s mum Philomena Lynott\u2019s My Boy. But Gale and I had a personal connection: she had been the producer of Monsters Of Rock, the weekly Sky TV show I presented in the late 80s.<\/p>\n

Unruly circumstances beyond my control meant that only a fraction of what we discussed that day made it into print. What follows is the story that should have run then but is no less fascinating now, 10 years later.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t it amazing that it\u2019s still so big?\u201d she said, referring to the many events planned to mark the anniversary of Phil\u2019s death. \u201cHe\u2019d be amazed if he knew. He\u2019s ended up with a longer career now than when he was alive!\u201d<\/p>\n

Article continues below <\/p>\n

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She paused. \u201cI can\u2019t imagine him being old, though. I can\u2019t imagine him coping with arthritis and all that. You look at Status Quo<\/a> or whoever still going, but Phil?\u201d<\/p>\n

They met when she was 18 and he was 20. She\u2019d just finished her A-levels when Lizzy played Queen\u2019s University. \u201cThey were penniless then,\u201d she recalled, \u201cso they stayed at one of the student\u2019s flats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Returning the favour with an open invitation to stay at the band\u2019s place in Dublin, Gale and her friends journeyed down from Belfast the following weekend. \u201cWe met them in the Bailey [famous Dublin watering hole], which was just amazing! And we slept on the floor of their flat.\u201d<\/p>\n

After they went home, Gale decided to return to Dublin alone. \u201cBelfast was really small, you couldn\u2019t grow there.\u201d She rented a room at the band\u2019s flat. Then on the night of Phil\u2019s 21st birthday, in August 1970, \u201cwe became a couple\u201d.<\/p>\n

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She laughed as she recalled Phil tiptoeing to her room \u201cfor a chat\u201d when the party was over. \u201cI thought: \u2018This is strange, where\u2019s the girlfriend?\u2019 Because there were hundreds of birds there, all stunningly gorgeous. I felt sorry for him, and we chatted all night long. It was only years later I discovered how na\u00efve I\u2019d been. He\u2019d already been with four different females that evening! And there was me feeling sorry for him. Ho, ho, ho! But we got on so well.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Phil\n<\/p>\n

Phil Lynott onstage with Thin Lizzy at the Marquee Club, London, November 13, 1973 (Image credit: Michael Putland\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Phil fell deeply in love. He even wrote a song about her, Look What The Wind Blew In (geddit?), which spoke of the \u2018Many lovely ladies\u2019 he had known. \u2018Then somewhere from the north, this gale I knew just blew in\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

When Phil relocated to London with Lizzy, Gale went too. But they struggled to find a place to stay. \u201cWe were poor as church mice, and in those days it really was \u2018No Dogs, No Blacks, No Irish\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

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They moved into a one-room bedsit near Camden Town. Gale got a job at an advertising agency in Knightsbridge. \u201cI earned about twelve pounds a week and the rent was seven pounds. Egg and chips was our main meal. If we went out it was for half a lager, and you made that last as long as you could.\u201d<\/p>\n

She recalled how Phil\u2019s mum Philomena paid for most of the petrol and repairs of the band\u2019s Transit van. \u201cShe had sent money home when Phil was a kid. Now she would give him a few quid whenever she saw him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even before Lizzy made him famous, Gale recalled, \u201canywhere I\u2019d walk in with Phil it would be: \u2018Have a drink!\u2019 I didn\u2019t really drink then, but there\u2019d be about nine Bacardi-and-Cokes on the table before we\u2019d even sat down.\u201d<\/p>\n

She sighed: \u201cPhilip was really shy. He would enter a room and not want to be the centre of attention. Because [of Lizzy] he couldn\u2019t be anything else, but he was really insecure. He had a lot of chips on his shoulder, which he managed to hide [from most people].\u201d<\/p>\n

Lynott was so insecure, said Gale, that \u201che had to continually be proving his attractiveness. What other explanation can there be for the behaviour? I fell for it for years. But it was all lies. There was a lot of guilt there. He nearly drove me insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

He would phone from the road demanding to know where she had been the previous evening. \u201cI\u2019d go: \u2018I was here in the flat.\u2019 He\u2019d go: \u2018No you weren\u2019t! Where were you? Who were you with? It went on and on to the point where I developed a stammer. I actually thought I was going insane. That\u2019s why I left in the end. I thought: \u2018I can\u2019t deal with this any more.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\"Phil\n<\/p>\n

Phil Lynott at home in Embassy Court, West Hampstead, London in 1976 (Image credit: Ian Dickson\/Redferns)<\/p>\n

Despite his own serial philandering, \u201che was the most jealous person on the planet. He might have trusted his mother, but I don\u2019t think he ever trusted another living human being. I was convinced in my naivet\u00e9 that all he needed was somebody he could trust one hundred per cent and then he could learn to trust. But I was accused of screwing everybody on the planet, and I was totally, one hundred per cent faithful.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Lizzy\u2019s tours got longer, Lynott\u2019s paranoia grew exponentially. \u201cIf I saw somebody we knew that I bumped into and said hello, if I didn\u2019t report that to him and he found out about it first, he\u2019d decide I was having an affair with them \u2013 it was obvious! My confidence evaporated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gale believed Phil\u2019s deep-seated fears \u2013 the roots of all his troubles \u2013 went back to his appalling childhood. \u201cMy childhood had a few problems, but mine was Disney compared to his.\u201d It wasn\u2019t just the poverty \u2013 everybody was dirt poor in Crumlin, the Dublin ghetto Lynott grew up in. It wasn\u2019t just the stigma of being a \u2018bastard\u2019 in the unforgivingly Catholic Ireland of the 1950s. It was being the only black person anyone he knew had ever seen.<\/p>\n

Gale recalled Phil telling her of the time as a child he was sent out to collect money on behalf of African orphans. \u201cAs though he was one! That\u2019s why he grew up with such an attitude. He was gonna beat the world! That\u2019s where his determination came from. His fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Gale introduced Phil to her parents, \u201cIt was excruciating. They knew he was black but they hadn\u2019t actually met him. He had this huge Afro hair, tight jeans and legs eight foot long. They were okay in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gale finally left Phil in 1976. It wasn\u2019t just the paranoia and jealousy. After the huge success that summer of The Boys Are Back In Town<\/a>, she now had \u201cmad people ringing the doorbell! Women with babies they said were his. Women stripping their clothes off on the doorstep\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

She still looked back on the early days as good times. \u201cPhil had a dream. We all had dreams. He worked hard, sitting there writing stuff all night. He was totally committed. He was on management\u2019s case twenty-four-seven. He had it all covered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, nearly all.<\/p>\n

Gale chuckled ruefully as she recalled how, years after they split, whenever they met \u201che tried to pull me every single time! I don\u2019t think he could help himself\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A decade ago, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of his death, I interviewed the only woman the young…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,134,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-552982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=552982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/552982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=552982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=552982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=552982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}