Death
By 1977 Denny's substance abuse issues had worsened. During her pregnancy, she drank and took cocaine. Linda Thompson told The Guardian that shortly after Georgia's birth, Denny "was crashing the car and leaving the baby in the pub and all sorts of stuff." Thompson also noted that the child was premature, yet Denny seemed to have little concern for her new baby.
In late March 1978, when husband Trevor Lucas was on one of his "disappearing acts", on holiday with her parents and baby in Cornwall, Denny was injured when she fell down a staircase and hit her head on concrete. Following the incident, Denny suffered from intense headaches; a doctor prescribed her the painkiller Distalgesic, a drug known to have fatal side effects when mixed with alcohol. On April 1 Denny performed one last charity concert at Byfield several days after the fall. Concerned with his wife's erratic behaviour and fearing for his daughter's safety, Denny's husband Trevor Lucas fled the UK back to his native Australia with their child several weeks after the accident, leaving Sandy without telling her on Thursday 13 April.
On Monday 17 April Denny collapsed and fell into a coma while at friend Miranda Ward's home. Four days later, she died at Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon. Her death was ruled to be the result of a traumatic mid-brain haemorrhage and blunt force trauma to her head. The funeral took place on 27 April 1978 at Putney Vale Cemetery. After the vicar had read Denny's favourite psalm - Psalm 23 (The Lord is my Shepherd) - a piper played "The Flowers of the Forest", a traditional song commemorating the fallen of Flodden Field. The inscription on her headstone reads, "'The Lady'" Alexandra Elene MacLean Lucas (Sandy Denny) 6.1.47 - 21.4.78."
Read more about this topic: Sandy Denny
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?”
—Socrates (469–399 B.C.)
“The only way out is the way through, just as you cannot escape from death except by dying. Being unable to write, you must examine in writing this being unable, which becomes for the present—henceforth?—the subject to which you are condemned.”
—Howard Nemerov (1920–1991)
“Because men really respect only that which was founded of old and has developed slowly, he who wants to live on after his death must take care not only of his posterity but even more of his past.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)