by Paul Howard
15. Tara, aged thirteen, in the courtyard at Luggala, taken by Lucy Lambton from a guest-room window.
16. Twelve-year-old Tara in Venice, where his mother took a palazzo for a month every summer.
17. Tara and his friend Lucy Lambton in Paris. ‘Tara was different to other boys of his age,’ she said. ‘There was a magic about him.’
18. A portrait of Tara, drawn on Claridge’s notepaper, by his friend the future children’s portraitist Charmian Scott.
19. Oonagh and a teenage Tara at the opening of Maison Ferreras on the rue du Fauborg Saint-Honoré, Paris, 1961.
20. Tara in Maison Ferreras, Paris, in July 1961. He had started to dress all in black, influenced by his new mod friend, Glen Kidston.
21. Tara and his wife, Nicki, whom he married at eighteen while she was pregnant with the first of their two sons. The photograph was taken for Vogue by Michael Cooper, who also took the photograph for the cover of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
22. Tara wins the Mercantile Trophy in his Lotus Elan in Rathdrum, County Wicklow, May 1964. It was the first and only time he ever raced.
23. Dandie Fashions, Tara’s clothes shop on the King’s Road, which opened shortly before Christmas, 1966.
24. Douglas Binder, David Vaughan and Dudley Edwards, members of a pop art collective who painted Tara’s AC Cobra. On the right is their assistant, Gary White.
25. Tara was immensely proud of his ‘acid’ car. In September 1966, it was exhibited in the trendy Fraser Gallery on Duke Street in London.
26. Brian Jones (left), Nicki Browne (second left) and Anita Pallenberg (second from right) and other guests take in the view on the way to Tara’s twenty-first-birthday party at Luggala, April 1966.
27. Brian, Anita and Nicki. ‘We had a lot of affinity together,’ said Anita, ‘but the main one was acid.’
28. Oonagh, Derek Hart of the BBC and Tara at the party in Luggala.
29. Tara with Amanda Lear, muse of Salvador Dali, in Paris. Their affair hastened the end of his marriage to Nicki.
30. Mick Jagger was among the guests entertained by The Lovin’ Spoonful at what would be Tara’s last birthday party.
31. Five aristocratic dandies photographed for Gentleman’s Quarterly in the summer of 1966. From left to right, Christopher Gibbs, Mark Palmer, Tara Browne, Nicholas Gormanston and Julian Ormsby-Gore.
32. Oonagh and Tara at the christening of Julian at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, in 1965. Nicki was described as ‘indisposed’.
33. Tara with his friend Brian Jones and his son Dorian at Luggala, November 1966. Just weeks later, Tara was dead.
34. Suki Potier, Tara’s date, who survived the car crash that killed him. On the left is Brian Jones, whom she dated after Tara’s death. Suki was to die in another car accident sixteen years later.
35. The aftermath of the crash in Redcliffe Gardens, South Kensington, in the early hours of 18 December 1966.
36. Tara was buried close to the shore of Lough Tay, County Wicklow, under a stone containing the two dates bearing out the tragedy of a life cut short.
37. A view of Tara’s boyhood playground. With its dark water and white beach, visitors often comment on Lough Tay’s similarity to the porter that made the Guinness name famous.
First published 2016 by Picador
This electronic edition published 2016 by Picador
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ISBN 978-1-5098-0005-6
Copyright © Paul Howard 2016
Cover photograph © Michael Cooper Collection
Author photograph © Alan Betson, Irish Times
‘A Day in the Life’ Words and Music by John Lennon & Paul McCartney © 1967,
Reproduced by permission of Sony/ATV Music Publishing Limited,
London W1F 9LD.
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