The woman who inspired the classic Beatles song Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, has died aged 46, a charity said today.
The song featured on the ground-breaking 1967 album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
John Lennon's elder son Julian said it was inspired by a picture he drew of his classmate Lucy O'Donnell when they were at a nursery school in Weybridge, Surrey, in 1966.
Julian said he took the picture home and showed it to his father, explaining: 'It's Lucy in the sky with diamonds.'
When Lennon and Paul McCartney's song was subsequently released, it caused controversy because of its hallucinogenic theme and supposed reference to the drug LSD.
The former classmates resumed their friendship in recent months when Lennon heard that Lucy, who was married to Ross Vodden and lived in Surbiton, Surrey, had become ill with lupus.
The autoimmune disease causes the body to attack its own cells, causing immense pain and organ breakdown.
The St Thomas Lupus Trust, which had been supporting Mr and Mrs Vodden during her illness, said she died last Tuesday.
Angie Davidson, campaign director of the trust, said: 'Everyone at the Louise Coote Lupus Unit was dreadfully shocked by the death of Lucy. She was a great supporter of ours and a real fighter.
'It's so sad that she has finally lost the battle she fought so bravely for so long.'
The trust said that Lennon and his mother Cynthia were 'shocked and saddened' by Mrs Vodden's death.
A book of condolence will be opened on the trust's website
www.lupus.org.uk.
In April, Julian, who now lives in France, sent Mrs Vodden a bouquet of flowers and a personally written card after hearing from his personal assistant, who knows Lucy's sister, that she was chronically ill.
Speaking then about the couple's childhood friendship and the painting, Mrs Vodden said: 'I can imagine him saying, "That's Lucy at school," and his father asking questions like "What's that in the sky?"'
'When I told a couple of friends that Lucy in the sky with diamonds was about me, they said, "No, it can't be, it's to do with LSD." I was too embarrassed to tell them that I didn't know what LSD was.'
Julian said he remembered showing the picture to his father: 'I used to show dad everything I'd built or painted at school, and this one sparked off the idea for a song about Lucy in the sky with diamonds.'
The image inspired Lennon and McCartney to write one of the most popular Beatles lyrics of them all.
'Picture yourself in a boat on a river, With tangerine trees and marmalade skies. Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly, A girl with kaleidoscope eyes...'
The rest, as they say, is history.
