JOHN Lennon’s former wife Cynthia – who recalled a strained relationship with the singer’s Aunt Mimi – has died at the age of 75.

Mimi Smith’s funeral at Poole Crematorium in December 1991 brought Cynthia together with Yoko Ono, whose affair with the singer prompted the pair’s divorce.

Cynthia Lennon’s family said she had died at her home in Spain after a short battle with cancer.

It said: "Her son Julian Lennon was at her bedside throughout. The family are thankful for your prayers.”

Cynthia met Lennon at art school in Liverpool in 1957 and the couple married just before Beatlemania transformed her husband into one of the most famous men in the world.

Lennon had been mostly brought up by his aunt Mimi and he bought her a home in Panorama Road, Sandbanks, in 1965, visiting as often as he could in the following years. Cynthia remembered him doing cartwheels on the beach in a sun hat and shorts.

Cynthia was said to have wept throughout Mimi’s funeral at Broadstone, but she later gave an unflattering account of her in her memoirs. She wrote: “She loved to fuel the image of the stern but loving aunt who provided the secure backdrop to John’s success. But that wasn’t the Mimi I knew.”

Cynthia claimed Mimi constantly “oppressed and hounded” her former husband. “He often complained that she never left him alone and found fault with everything he did.

“She had been the closest thing he had to a parent, and he wanted to please her, but she had made it impossible for him.”

Her account contradicted those of some other friends, including Sir Paul McCartney, who remembered Mimi as stern but loving.