By Ronnie Wood,Screenprint
Personal info: Eric Patrick Clapton was born March 30, 1945 in Ripley, England, U.K..
Education: Expelled from Kingston College of Art
Relations: Wife : Melia McEnery; Ex-wife: Pattie Boyd Harrison; Son: Conor (deceased);
Daughters : Ruth Kelly-Clapton (Born 1st Nov 1985); Julie Rose Clapton (Born 15th Jun 2001), Ella Mae Clapton (Born 14th Jan 2003), Sophie Clapton (Born 1st Feb 2005)
In the late 1960s, one of the most prominent pieces of graffiti seen in London and New York was "Clapton is God." Thirty years later, the stalwart guitarist and singer continues to hold the initiated enthralled, and a fair share of his present-day fans weren't even born when those words of worship were emblazoned on public edifices. Clapton's meandering and groundbreaking musical career has been punctuated by extreme personal hardship and tragedy. Through the emotional truth of his music, he has sought refuge and release from the suffering of drug and alcohol addiction, personal relationships gone awry, and the deaths of several loved ones.
Young Ricky (that's what his grandparent's called him) was a quiet and polite child, an above average student with an aptitude for art. He was raised believing that his grandparents were his parents and his mother was his sister, to shield him the stigma that illegitimacy carried with it. The truth was eventually revealed to him, at the age of nine by his grandmother. Later, when Eric would visit his mother, they would still pretend to be brother and sister.
As an adolescent, Clapton glimpsed the future when he tuned in to a Jerry Lee Lewis appearance on British television. Lewis's explosive performance, coupled with young Eric's emerging love of the blues and American R&B, was powerful enough to ignite a desire to learn to play guitar. He commenced studies at the Kingston College of Art, but his intended career path in stained-glass design ended permanently when the blues-obsessed Clapton was expelled at seventeen for playing guitar in class. He took a job as a manual laborer and spent most of his free time playing the electric guitar he persuaded his grandparents to purchase for him. In time, Clapton joined a number of British blues bands, including the Roosters and Casey Jones, and eventually rose to prominence as a member of the Yardbirds, whose lineup would eventually include all three British guitar heroes of the sixties: Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck. The group became a sensation for their blues-tinged rock, as did the budding guitar virtuoso Clapton, who earned the nickname "Slowhand" because his forceful string-bending often resulted in broken guitar strings, which he would replace onstage while the crowd engaged in a slow hand-clapping....
The info has been taken from the site of Eric Clapton.co.uk
More info - also here