Give Peace a Chance lyrics sell for $841,000

Original handwritten lyrics to one of John Lennon's best known songs sold in London Thursday for $841,000.

The price outstripped auction house Christie's estimate of up to $600,000.

The words the former Beatle wrote to his anti-war anthem Give Peace a Chance were auctioned by a woman who snuck into his Montreal hotel room in 1969 when she was just a teenager.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono were in town staging their "bed-in" for world peace when Gail Renard and her friend managed to sneak past hotel security.

"And suddenly … we were in the room with John Lennon. And that was quite a moment. Not for him but for me," Renard told CBC News.

Renard ended up spending eight days with the couple, running errands and taking care of Ono's young daughter.

She was there when Lennon penned Give Peace a Chance, a song that would become a rallying cry in the anti-Vietnam War fervour of the time.

Lennon gave Renard his lyrics on a large cue card for a singalong.

"He kept on saying, 'These things are going to be worth something someday. Have them,' " she said.

Renard, now a U.K.-based TV writer and presenter, told CBC News that Lennon negotiated with her mother, to get permission for her to stay with him and Ono.

"I had to ring my mother," she recalled. "She ended up speaking to John. You wouldn't want to cross my mother — a tough little lady."

The lyrics were sold as part of an auction of rock memorabilia that included pants worn by Jimi Hendrix and dozens of photos of the bed-in for peace taken by Renard.

The auction fell on the day chosen by the city of Liverpool as Beatles Day. The Beatles's home town celebrated their achievements Thursday on the 44th anniversary of their triumphant homecoming after conquering the United States in 1964.