Polly Samson

Polly Samson (born 29 April 1962) is an English novelist, lyricist and journalist. She is married to the musician David Gilmour and has written lyrics for many of his songs, including albums with his band Pink Floyd.

Life and career Samson's father was Lance Samson, a newspaper editor and diplomatic correspondent for the Morning Star. He and his Jewish family lived in Hamburg, from where he fled from Nazi persecution as a child on the Kindertransport, coming to England as a refugee. Her mother was Esther Cheo Ying, a Chinese-English writer Samson's mother's second husband was the British journalist Alan Winnington.

Fiction Following a troubled childhood, Samson joined the publishing industry, through which she met the writer Heathcote Williams, with whom she became romantically involved during the publication of his book-length poem Whale Nation (1988). Samson was responsible for publicising what became a best-selling volume, despite Williams's reluctance to promote his own work. With Williams she had her first son, Charlie. Following his birth, Samson became homeless and was taken in for a period by the journalist Cassandra Jardine.

Samson has written short stories for BBC Radio 4 and has had a collection published Lying in Bed (Virago 1999) and a novel, Out of the Picture (Virago 2000).

In 2018, Samson was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her novel A Theatre For Dreamers was published on 2 April 2020 by Bloomsbury Circus. The novel entered the Sunday Times Bestsellers Chart at number two.

Music After splitting from Williams, Samson met the Pink Floyd singer and guitarist David Gilmour. They married in 1994 during Pink Floyd's Division Bell tour. Her son with Heathcote Williams, Charlie, was adopted by Gilmour. Gilmour said that Samson's contributions had bothered the management, but the producer, Bob Ezrin, said she had been inspirational for Gilmour and that she "pulled the whole album together". Samson did not want credit, saying "the idea of my name being attached to Pink Floyd was like some nightmare", but Gilmour insisted, telling her she would regret going uncredited. She later said he was right and that she had become used to him singing her lyrics.

Samson contributed lyrics to "Louder than Words" on the 2014 Pink Floyd album The Endless River. She wrote lyrics for Gilmour's 2006 album On an Island,

On 6 February 2023, Samson tweeted to Gilmour's former Pink Floyd bandmate Roger Waters: "Sadly you are antisemitic to your rotten core. Also a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac. Enough of your nonsense." Gilmour followed up by writing: "Every word demonstrably true." Waters described the comments as "incendiary and wildly inaccurate".

Works

Lying in Bed – Virago Press Ltd, 2000; Out of the Picture – Virago Press Ltd, 2001; Perfect Lives – Virago Press Ltd, 2010; The Kindness – Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015; A Theatre for Dreamers – Bloomsbury Circus, 2020;