Woman who inspired Beatles' Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds dies aged just 46 after battling disease



Inspiration: Lucy Vodden (nee O'Donnell) died after battling lupus, an incurable disease

The woman whose childhood friendship with John Lennon’s son Julian inspired the song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds has died.

Lucy Vodden, who was recently revealed as the girl behind the 40-year-old Beatles song, had been battling lupus, an incurable disease of the immune system.

Julian Lennon has said that the track was inspired by a picture he drew of classmate Lucy O’Donnell with star-like shapes when they were at nursery school in the mid-1960s.

The young Julian showed his father the picture and told him it was ‘Lucy in the sky with diamonds’.

Lennon used the phrase as a title for a song he wrote for the album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, released in 1967.



Last night Julian and his mother Cynthia

said they were ‘shocked and saddened’ by 46-year-old Mrs Vodden’s death.

The musician, who lives in France, got back in touch with her six months ago after discovering through mutual friends

that she was chronically ill.

He sent a bouquet with a personally written card and then gave her garden centre vouchers because he had learnt that she took solace in her plants.

Muse: Julian Lennon, pictured with father John and stepmother Yoko Ono, drew a picture of Lucy O'Donnell and took it home



‘I’ve been able to help out a bit,’ he said at the time.



‘I was so upset to hear what had happened.’

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds initially caused controversy and was banned by the BBC because of its supposed reference to the drug LSD.

The whereabouts of Julian Lennon’s childhood painting is uncertain, although at one stage it was in his mother’s possession.