Yoko Ono, who once spent a week in bed in a peace protest with new husband Beatle John Lennon has sent a personal message of support to an Addingham couple doing the same.

Andrew and Christine Gale began their 24-hour lie-in for world peace at midnight in a Valentine's Day re-enactment of Yoko and John Lennon's famous honeymoon week-long love-in at the Amsterdam Hilton hotel in 1969 which was in protest at the Vietnam war.

Yoko's London publicist Murray Chalmers contacted the Telegraph & Argus yesterday at the request of Japanese-born artist/musician after she learned about the couple's demonstration and wanted to send them flowers and her best wishes.

And in a statement to the T&A, New York-based Yoko said: "It think it's great that Andrew and Christine are doing this. All of us must do what we can to communicate the message of peace. I send them my love and prayers."

The couple's love-in has attracted widespread media interest but they said they were "utterly gobsmacked" to find out that Yoko, who is 70 on Tuesday, had heard about them.

Mr Gale, a scriptwriter, was inspired for the love-in after a dream two weeks ago in which he saw Yoko Ono and John Lennon and decided to plan a similar protest.

"We just cannot believe it, we are totally gobsmacked. We had had a lot of media interest in our love-in but this is a total shock."

His wife added: "It's a total surprise. We are doing this for personal reasons. I can't be at the demonstration in London tomorrow and Andrew told me about his dream and I thought why not.

"We're doing this so we can sleep at night, without worrying about the slaughter of innocent women and children being murdered by the US and the UK bombs.

"We just want the UN to be given a chance. I am French myself and I agree with the French position and really just want peace to be given a chance. We want a peaceful resolution to the current crisis."