I first met Sid Vicious in the summer of 1978. He and Nancy used to show up at Revenge, a punk shop I worked at in New York’s East Village. Sid wasn’t noticeably high. He would always shake hands and talk to people in the shop. Unfortunately, people didn’t like Nancy. She annoyed a lot of the other girls, because they used their looks to meet the guys in the band and Nancy used drugs. The only way she could make money for drugs was from prostitution.

I’d been working as a photographer since about 1973, so everyone was used to seeing me with my camera. I knew Nancy could be trouble, but I was also somebody who gravitated towards the underdog, so Nancy and I became friends.

During the next couple of months, they would come into the shop every now and then, and I could see Sid was getting more stoned. He was drinking a lot too, and was obviously very depressed. There was a lot of strong heroin coming into New York at that time and Nancy was calling up every drug dealer in town, annoying all the wrong people.

The drugs were making Sid and Nancy’s volatile relationship even more troubled. There was domestic violence — on both sides. It was no surprise one of them ended up dead. It just happened to be Nancy. How it happened has always been open to speculation. Sid was arrested for murder, but I’ve talked to people who were at the Chelsea hotel that night and they say Sid was totally out of it. Maybe it was an accident?

They used to play with knives — literally. Anything could have happened.

Sid got out on bail, but he was distraught about Nancy and attempted suicide. His mother, Anne, had come over to look after him and Sid was taken to Bellevue hospital. That cleaned him up for a time. I remember seeing him after he came out. Blondie were playing at the Palladium and he was with his new girlfriend, Michelle Robison. I knew Michelle. She was a nice middle-class girl, but she and Sid bonded after they met at a club. Sid still got into trouble.

A few weeks later he was in a scuffle and this time he went to Rikers Island — with all the real criminals.

On February 1, 1979, Michelle, Anne and I went to the courthouse and he was released on bail. Anne was determined to keep him on the straight and narrow. She decided to throw a dinner party at Michelle’s place and cook Sid’s favourite meal, spaghetti bolognese. Sid was in a great mood, telling us stories about his time in prison. Jerry Only of the Misfits and Howie Pyro of the Blessed were at the flat, but they were good guys. It was only when Jerry Nolan [former drummer with the New York Dolls] turned up that

I started to worry. Jerry was a notorious junkie. We ate and listened to more of Sid’s stories, and then these London friends of Sid’s showed up. Immediately the atmosphere changed. I could tell drugs were in the room. I said to Jerry and Howie: “Look, if they’re going to start shooting up, let’s go.” We got our coats on, but that’s when Sid overdosed.

Anne knew what to do. She’d seen it before. We started wrapping blankets round him, rubbing his arms, shaking him. Suddenly he came round. The first thing he said was: “Sorry I scared you all.” He seemed a bit shocked he’d overdosed, but he was okay. He even had a cup of tea.

I left around 2am and that was the last time I saw him. He died sometime after we left and the police report said it was an overdose. Everybody assumed it was suicide, but the Sid Vicious I saw that night didn’t look like he was about to commit suicide. I think the strength of that heroin took him by surprise.

When you overdose you’re not supposed to sleep, because the heart can slow down and stop. Maybe that’s what happened — he died in his sleep by accident. But that’s not “exciting” enough for the punk myth, is it? We need murder and suicide! Everything about his life has been turned into a myth. The media has trampled on his grave, on Nancy’s grave and on Anne’s grave [she died in 1996].

It’s easy to blame Nancy and Anne for his death, but who can you blame in a situation like that? Nancy and Sid both seemed to have mental problems. Anne had her own troubled life and didn’t know how to be a normal mother. How can you talk about blame? What about the drug dealers? What about the guys who paid Nancy for sex? Why not blame them?

Sid and Nancy have become the poster children for punk. That wasn’t punk. Punk was something that came along and challenged the way things were. Sid and Nancy were part of punk, but the media are only interested in two dead kids. If Sid and Nancy had been around today, maybe they’d be in rehab, having therapy sessions, getting help. Their story might have had a happy ending.

Eileen Polk’s images are included in the exhibition Sid Vicious: No One Is Innocent, at Proud Camden in London, until August 12; www.proud.co.uk

Interview by Danny Scott. Photographs: Don May

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