She said they had become great friends before her death from breast cancer in April and described the death as a "great loss".

Speaking to the Liverpool Echo, John Lennon's widow dismissed the view that she and Sir Paul McCartney's late wife had disliked each other.

'Never really enemies'

Yoko Ono: "Talking about Lennon is all I have left"

She said: "People always portrayed us as enemies, like two boxers on opposite sides of the ring, but it was never really like that.

"In later life, especially, we became friends. We had an understanding of each other. We both married Beatles and we knew what that was like.

"It was a great loss. She was a very passionate woman about the things she believed in. I was shocked by the news of Linda's death."

She also talked about the pain she still feels about her husband's death in 1980.

"I am a woman who has lost my husband. I think about John every day, and talking about him is one of my last links with him," she said.

'John's memory is the last link'

John Lennon: "Talking about him keeps his memory alive"

"It's funny. When I first married him, I resented the fact that everything was about John. I was an established artist myself, and I had my own career.

"I fought so hard to keep my own identity, not just to become part of John Lennon.

"But then John died and that changed everything. He was taken away from me and that was a terrible shock. Of course it still hurts.

"Talking about him is all I have left. His memory is the last link. And it's the way I stay close to him and keep that memory alive."

The interview coincides with the release of the new John Lennon Anthology, a collection of previously unheard tracks compiled by Yoko.

She added she felt it was her responsibilty to keep her husband's work in the public eye.

'Would be proud' of Sean

Sean Lennon: "Very complex. very aware"

Despite her difficult relationship with her stepson Julian, Yoko is sure that Lennon would have been proud of his youngest son Sean's musical career.

"He is very complex, very aware, nowhere near as naive as John and I were," she said.

"When I was doing the Anthology, there was a home recording of him and John singing together.