Jimi Hendrix - Jimi Hendrix's Ex Wonders If She Could Have Saved Him

The Brit met Hendrix at a 1966 gig in London when she was only 20 years old and they embarked on a whirlwind romance.

The couple split in 1969 after the star began dabbling in drugs while on the road, and Etchingham tells BBC News, "He started to look really rough. His hair was breaking off, he didn't have healthy skin, he looked as if he'd aged 10 years in two and a half."

Etchingham received a panicked phone call from a member of Hendrix's entourage in the summer of 1970 saying the star was having a meltdown in his hotel room and was in need of her help.

She recalls, "Everybody was frightened to go in, but I walked in and he was fine with me. He said he had a terrible cold. I got a flannel and wiped his forehead. I didn't know what was wrong so I made sure he was comfortable in bed and left."

Etchingham saw Hendrix for the last time a few weeks later on 17 September, 1970, and she adds: "I bumped into him in Kensington antique market. He was buying belts or scarves. And he... invited me over to his hotel. I said I might - but that was it. I never saw him again. The next morning he was dead."

Hendrix died in his sleep after choking on his own vomit, and Etchingham admits she's often wondered if things would have been different if she'd taken him up on his invitation.

She explains, "I thought that if I'd gone round, maybe it wouldn't have happened... I wish that I'd gone round, but I didn't and that's all there is to it."