Much of the background material that follows comes from Lee's own accounts, in her books The Happy Medium (Futura 1983) and Kinds Of Loving (Columbus 1987).

Kinds Of Loving contains a great deal of detail about her relationship with Billy. Autobiographies, of course, are self-serving, and present events only from the point of view of the author. However, although Lee and Billy separated with a great deal of unpleasantness, they became close friends again and the book was clearly written at a time when Lee felt no rancour and was happily settled into marriage.

In her home town of Sheffield, she married early. Her husband was called up for National Service with the Army. While he was away, Audrey formed a relationship with a member of a musical tour group, became pregnant and miscarried.

She moved to London and began living with a bisexual man, during which time she also experimented with a lesbian relationship.

After moving in with Duffy Power, a member of Larry Parnes' stable of singers, she met Billy and began an eight-year relationship.

They planned to be married and to adopt a black child during a holiday in the West Indies, but before either event could take place, they heard that their pet dog had drowned at home in the UK, and flew back.

Billy and Lee set up home in Ockley, Surrey, behind a high wall where they assembled a considerable menagerie and played host to most of the big names of the music world.

Their relationship was not without its hiccups, as both are generally believed to have had other interests from time to time. Lee left Billy for a month when he completed filming I've Gotta Horse, after another member of the cast referred to co-star Amanda Barrie as Billy's girlfriend.

The lifestyle depicted in some of Lee's accounts, particularly episodes of drug-taking, shocks many people. It is clear that this took place in the context of the liberating atmosphere of the 1960s, and both Billy - who seems to have operated on the periphery of this activity - and Lee appear to accept the foolishness of their conduct.

Lee made three records of her own, under the name Lady Lee, in the 1960s.

Billy and Lee finally separated at Christmas, 1967. Billy discovered that Lee had been on holiday earlier that year with disc jockey Tony King, having agreed with her friend Judith Hall, that she should give her an alibi. However, Lee felt that Billy was not blameless, as she believed that he and Judith had been associating, and mutual recriminations began.

Billy and Judith married on May 31, 1969

After Billy's first heart operation, both Billy and Judith moved into the home of Lee and her new husband, the disc jockey and comedian Kenny Everett, for a period, while Billy recuperated. Billy and Judith soon separated - Billy felt so unsettled by Judith that he sent Keith Moon to fetch his clothes. Moon took a shotgun.

Billy again moved in with the Everetts.

During her marriage to Kenny Everett, Lee became convinced that she was a medium and a healer and this became a central feature of her life.

She says that at the time of her marriage, she did not realise that Everett was homosexual. They divorced after 17 years, and Lee married actor John Alkin.

Billy had become involved with heart charities and met benefactor Cecil Rosen, an affluent man with wide interests in property. Billy then met his daughter, Lisa, who was to become a pivotal figure for the rest of Billy's life.

Lee was delighted about Billy's relationship with Lisa, with whom he spent the last years of his life. Lee wrote: "God sent Lisa just in time, as I feel that without her he'd have died much sooner." Lee and John Alkin occasionally stayed with Billy and Lisa on their Welsh farm.

After Billy's death, Lisa married record producer Stephen Voice. They had two children, but their marriage ended in 2000. Lisa still lives in the flat in St John's Wood, London, that she shared with Billy and where he collapsed.

A valuable interview with Lisa was published by the Daily Mail in January 2001.

In later years, Lee came to public notice again when she nursed her old friend Dusty Springfield through her last illness in 1999.

I believe that Lee now lives in the Brighton area.