I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

by Paul Howard

  ‘“We were supposed to be going to Ireland . . .”’ Ibid.

  ‘“I was told by a member of the staff that they had gone away . . .”’ Ibid.

  ‘“Divorce was just an accepted thing in their family . . .”’ Ibid.

  ‘ . . . she took a taxi to Pall Mall to see David Jacobs . . .’ In 1959, David Jacobs helped formulate the strategy for Liberace’s successful libel suit against the Daily Mirror for suggesting that he was gay. Jacobs committed suicide in 1968. See also: ‘The Mystery of David Jacobs, the Liberace Lawyer’, an article by Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph, 3 June 2013.

  ‘Jacobs took her straight to the High Court . . .’ Contemporary newspaper reports of the court case.

  ‘Her counsel, Harold Law, told the court . . . .’ Contemporary newspaper reports.

  ‘That night, Dublin’s Evening Press led with the headline: “Guinness Heir Sought by Police”.’ Evening Press, 13 October 1966.

  “Nicki appeared in the following morning’s Daily Express . . .” Daily Express, 15 October 1966.

  ‘“I just want to know where my babies are . . .”’Ibid.

  ‘“I can’t tell you anything . . .”’ Daily Express, 17 October 1966.

  ‘“I phoned him up . . .”’ Author interview with Nicki Browne, by telephone 2010.

  ‘The following weekend . . . Tara flew to Paris to see Amanda . . .’ A full account of this story is featured in My Life with Dali by Amanda Lear (Virgin Books, 1985), pp. 18–23.

  ‘Amanda agreed, although she claimed later that she regretted it . . .’ Author interview with Amanda Lear, by telephone, 2010.

  ‘“A week or two later . . . he phoned me to say he was coming to Paris tomorrow . . .”’ Ibid.

  ‘“We were followed everywhere . . .”’ Author interview with Rock Brynner, by telephone, 2009.

  ‘“Oonagh thought I did it so that I could prove adultery . . .”’ Author interview with Nicki Browne, by telephone, 2010.

  ‘. . . the woman who was once described by Cecil Beaton as “the biggest bitch in London”.’ Maureen told the writer Hugo Vickers that Cecil Beaton had introduced her thus at a dinner party in 1935. Obituary, Independent, 22 May 1998.

  ‘“I had no money at all . . .”’ Author interview with Nicki Browne, by telephone, 2010.

  14: A DAY IN THE LIFE

  ‘“He was in a state of absolute turmoil . . .”’ Author interview with Gerard Campbell, by telephone, 2010.

  ‘ . . . The New York Times commented upon the fin de siècle feel to the city . . .’ New York Times, 8 June 1966.

  ‘“I remember being on the King’s Road with him . . .”’ Author interview with Rock Brynner, by telephone, 2009.

  ‘“We had a little scene together . . .”’ Author interview with Marianne Faithfull, by telephone, 2011.

  ‘“On this particular night, he was hanging around . . .”’ Author interview with Dudley Edwards, Harrogate, 2009.

  ‘“John would go and buy the fabric . . .”’ Author interview with Alan Holsten, London, 2010.

  ‘“It did have its own aesthetic . . .”’ Author interview with Paul Gorman, London, 2011.

  ‘“They nicked my suppliers . . .”’ Author interview with Michael Rainey, by telephone, 2011.

  ‘“It was a mistake. I thought the King’s Road was where it was happening . . .”’ Ibid.

  ‘“By the time we opened, everyone was just plagiarizing everyone else . . .”’ Author interview with Alan Holsten, London, 2010.

  ‘“But it had everything going for it . . .”’ Ibid.

  ‘“He said he wanted the same thing done to his piano . . .”’ Author interview with Dudley Edwards, Harrogate, 2009. Dudley Edwards and Paul McCartney became fast friends. In fact, while Jane Asher was in America pursuing her career as an actress, Paul invited Dudley to move into his house and paint a mural. ‘I don’t think I took a lid off a paint tin,’ Dudley said. ‘I’d be ready to start work and he’d say, “Come to the pub,” or, “Come to the studio.” I think he was just lonely for company. When Jane came back, I moved out and Ringo asked me to move in with him and paint him a mural. He got his mural, though.’

  ‘“I remember one night I was having a trip with him in Theodora’s house . . .”’ Author interview with Martin Wilkinson, Newport, 2011.

  ‘. . . He became a difficult presence around the studio, petulant, uncommunicative, drunk, or drugged.’ From several biographies of Brian Jones, especially Brian Jones: The Making of a Rolling Stone by Paul Trynka (Viking, 2014); Brian Jones: The Untold Life and Mysterious Death of a Rock Legend by Laura Jackson (Smith Gryphon, 1992); and Who Killed Christopher Robin?: The Murder of a Rolling Stone by Terry Rawlings (Helter Skelter Publishing, 1994).

  ‘“For Brian, I think his friendship with Tara was a safe haven . . .”’ Author interview with Anita Pallenberg, London, 2015.

  ‘“Brian answered the door . . .”’ Author interview with Martin Wilkinson, Newport, 2011.

  ‘“I heard what sounded like a racing car . . .”’ Author interview with Thomas Webster, Wicklow, 2009.

  ‘“I don’t think I shall be getting any clothes there . . .”’ Quoted in the Daily Express, 9 December 1966.

  ‘When my heart first began . . .’ Reproduced with the kind permission of the Honourable Garech Browne.

  ‘She came from a comfortable, middle-class background, he remembered . . .’ Author interview with Mark Palmer, Cheltenham, 2015.

  ‘“Nicki, by contrast, was bubbly and alive . . .”’ Author interview with Michael Rainey, by telephone, 2011.

  ‘“She seemed to sort of drift through life . . .”’ Author interview with Jose Fonseca, by telephone, 2010.

  ‘“She was a rebound thing for Tara . . .”’ Author interview with Martin Wilkinson, Newport, 2011.

  ‘“He rang me the following day . . .”’ Author interview with Nicki Browne, by telephone, 2009.

  ‘“I think he just saw everything going down the spout . . .”’ Ibid.

  ‘“It’s very dangerous if you haven’t driven anything for six months . . .”’ Author interview with Martin Wilkinson, Newport, 2011.

  ‘Seconds later, there was a bang . . .’ From contemporary newspaper reports of the accident, quoting eye-witnesses.

  ‘“A gentleman,” said Anita Pallenberg . . .’ Author interview with Anita Pallenberg, London, 2015.

  ‘“Theodora got there before me . . .”’ Author interview with Nicki Browne, by telephone, 2010.

  ‘“It was the most awful thing I’ve ever had to do . . .”’ Author interview with Gay Kindersley, East Garston, 2011.

  ‘“You expect to see your parents die . . .”’ Author interview with Garech Browne, Wicklow, 2006.

  ‘“I said to her, ‘I have something urgent I have to tell you.’”’ Author interview with Garech Browne, Wicklow, 2016.

  ‘“It was like a death knell sounding over London . . .”’ Author interview with Marianne Faithfull, by telephone, 2011.

  ‘“It was a very gallant act . . .”’ Gilbert Potier, quoted in several newspapers, 19 December 1966.

  ‘“I am numbed . . .”’ Brian Jones, quoted in several newspapers, 19 December 1966.

  ‘“We felt immortal . . .”’ Author interview with Anita Pallenberg, London, 2015.

  EPILOGUE: AND THOUGH THE NEWS WAS RATHER SAD

  ‘Nicki and Oonagh appeared in front of Mr Justice Cross . . .’ From several contemporary newspaper reports.

  ‘. . . every effort should be made to ensure that their mother played an increasing role in their lives.’ Ibid.

  ‘“I had no chance . . .”’ Author interview with Nicki Browne, by telephone, 2010.

  ‘He was, in his own words, “very out of it then” . . .’ John Lennon interviewed in Rolling Stone, 21 January 1971.

  ‘“I went out and bought a new suit . . .”’ Author interview with Gerard Campbell, by telephone, 2010.

  ‘“She moved out of Luggala . . .”’ Author interview with Greta Fa
nning, Wicklow, 2009. Greta is a sister of Mary Fanning, who went to London to work as a nanny for Tara and Nicki.

  ‘“As the older brother . . .”’ Author interview with Garech Browne, Wicklow, 2006.

  ‘“I’m going by myself . . .”’ As quoted in several contemporary newspapers.

  ‘“I couldn’t grieve for Tara properly . . .”’ Author interview with Anita Pallenberg, London, 2015.

  ‘“For me, the day that Tara died was the end of the Sixties . . .”’ Author interview with Hugo Williams, London, 2011.

  ‘“We were all so young . . .”’ Author interview with Anita Pallenberg, London, 2015.

  ‘. . . thought he’d just heard a confession from Mick Jagger, rather than Brian Jones.’ Various sources, including Butterfly on a Wheel: The Great Rolling Stones Drug Bust by Simon Wells (Omnibus Press, 2012).

  ‘. . . a leader article criticizing the harshness of the sentences and the Victorian brutality brought to bear on those involved.’ Paraphrasing Alexander Pope’s poem Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot, William Rees-Mogg asked, ‘Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?’ The Times, 1 July 1967.

  ‘“He used to really get up their noses . . .”’ Author interview with Alan Holsten, London, 2010.

  ‘“They busted him for drugs . . .”’ Ibid.

  ‘Keith, who had developed feelings for Anita, made his move . . .’ Various accounts, especially Life by Keith Richards (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2010).

  ‘“He was devastated by Tara’s death . . .”’ Author interview with Amanda Lear, by telephone, 2010.

  ‘“Suki was completely broken up by what happened . . .”’ Author interview with Jose Fonseca, by telephone, 2010.

  ‘“Brian definitely went downhill after Tara died . . .”’ Author interview with Marianne Faithfull, by telephone, 2011.

  ‘A silly-season conspiracy theory, which started among students on a university campus in Iowa . . .’ The Walrus was Paul: The Great Beatle Death Clues by R. Gary Patterson (Prentice Hall & IBD, 1998) is a fascinating account of the Paul is Dead hoax.

  ‘“They said Tara had had cosmetic surgery to make him look like Paul . . .”’ Author interview with Nicki Browne, by telephone, 2011.

  ‘ . . . the 100 Greatest Songs by the band in order . . .’ Rolling Stone, special edition, 19 September 2011.

  ‘“Looking back,” Nicki said of the affair . . .’ Author interview with Nicki Browne, by telephone, 2010.

  ‘“He wanted to be Peter Pan . . .”’ Author interview with Nicki Browne, by telephone, 2012.

  PICTURE CREDITS

  here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here:

  Images and text excerpted from Luggala Days: The Story of a Guinness House by Robert O’Byrne. Photography by Gavin Kingcombe and James Fennell. Reprinted with permission of the publisher CICO Books, © 2012. All rights reserved

  here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here:

  These family photographs are reproduced with the kind permission of the Honourable Garech Browne and Dorian Browne

  here: © de Laszlo Foundation

  here: Courtesy of Bystander

  here: Courtesy of Tatler

  here, here: Reproduced with the kind permission of Lucy Lambton

  here: Charmian Scott

  here, here, here, here, here: © Michael Cooper Collection

  here: Brian Foley

  here, here, here: © Martin Cook, www.martincook.zenfolio.com

  here: Willy Rizzo/Gentleman’s Quarterly, 1966 © Condé Nast

  here, here: Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy Stock Photo

  Acknowledgements

  My interest in the short but fascinating life of the Honourable Tara Browne stretches back to 2006 and a feature article I was commissioned to write for the magazine of the now sadly defunct Sunday Tribune. It was published in December 2006 in the week of the fortieth anniversary of his death in a car crash in London. Though I interviewed his brother, the Honourable Garech Browne, and several of his friends, I was disappointed with the final piece, knowing that it did scant justice to his extraordinarily colourful life and times. Over the months that followed, I couldn’t help feeling that his story required a fuller telling, which is when my decade-long quest to find out everything I could about Tara Browne began.

  This book would not have been possible without the agreement and kind help of Garech, who has become a dear friend to me since my first of what must now be seventy visits to Luggala since 2006. Garech has inherited his mother’s extraordinary gift for hospitality and the warmth of the welcome I have always received when visiting the house, whether alone to work, or with my wife for dinner, will never be forgotten.

  Garech gave me access to the Luggala visitors’ book and his mother’s enormous collection of photographs and newspaper clippings, which proved invaluable in piecing together the story of Tara’s life. He asked for permission to read the manuscript before it was published but promised only to correct facts and not my interpretation of events. While some of the story was undoubtedly difficult for him to read, he was true to his word, asking for nothing to be amended or removed, apart from my occasional spelling mistakes or errors relating to my lack of knowledge of the aristocratic tradition. For that and the friendship that has come as a happy by-product of my work on this book, I am forever grateful.

  I never got to meet Tara’s widow, Nicki, before her death in 2012, which saddens me greatly. Twice I was due to travel to Spain to interview her, but both times she was forced to cancel owing to illness. We spoke many times on the phone over the course of several years and she shared a great many details of her story with me, painful though some of our conversations were for her. It pleased me enormously to receive a postcard from her shortly before her death, featuring a cartoon of a frog sitting on a lily pad, casting a line into a pond. On the reverse side, she had written, ‘Keep fishing. Nicki.’

  I am also hugely grateful to Tara’s sons, Dorian and Julian. While they were too young at the time of their father’s death to have formed any strong and lasting memories of him, their support and interest in the project was a great help, as were the family albums that Dorian kindly allowed me to see. I would also like to thank Julian’s wife, Tanja, for the generous welcome that she and her husband extended to me when we met at Luggala. And Dorian’s wife, Alison, and their sons, Sebastian and Gabriel, for the hospitality and regular refreshments they offered me when I spent an entire weekend in their dining room poring over volumes of old photos.

  It is a rare and happy thing as a biographer to find a subject who was as universally loved as Tara Browne. Almost all of his friends whom I approached were delighted to share their memories of him with me and I enjoyed the experience of meeting most of them face to face while pursuing the story all over Ireland and Britain.

  For their wonderful reminiscences, I would especially like to thank Michael Boyle; Dominick Browne, Lord Mereworth; Rock Brynner; Joe Butler; Sean Byrne; Maura Byrne; Gerard Campbell; Godfrey Carey; Tchaik Chassay; Serena Connell; Dudley Edwards; Marianne Faithfull; Greta Fanning; the late Desmond Fitzgerald, the Knight of Glin; Jose Fonseca; Christopher Gibbs; Nicholas Gormanston; Desmond Guinness; Penny Guinness; Judith Haslam; Alan Holsten; Catheryn Huntley; Judith Keppel; Glen Kidston; the late Gay Kindersley; Kim Kindersley; Robin Kindersley; Prince Stanislaus Klossowski de Rola; Amanda Lear; Lady Lucinda Lambton; Jacquetta Lampson; Gordon Ledbetter; the late Candida Lycett Green; Rupert Lycett Green; Mike McCartney; John Medlycott, David Mlinaric; Paddy Moloney; John Montague; Larry Mooney; Max Mosley; Brid Ni Dhonnchadha; Melissa North; Lady Jane Ormsby-Gore, Lady Victoria Ormsby-Gore; Sir Mark Palmer; Anita Pallenberg; Mary Quain; Michael Rainey; Rabea Redpath; the late Kenneth Rose; Peregrine St Germans; John Sebastian; Rosemary Smith; Monsignor Tom Stack; Michael Steen; Nigel Waymouth; Neale Webb; Thomas Webster; Noeleen Webster; Martin Wilkinson; and Hugo W
illiams.

  I owe an enormous debt of thanks to Philomena Flatley, the former secretary to Lord Oranmore and Browne, who gave up an entire day to show me around the empty rooms of Castle Mac Garrett in County Mayo. It was of considerable help in gaining a picture of the early years of Tara’s boyhood.

  I am also grateful to Charles Doble for sharing his knowledge of the life and times of Sally Gray with me, for his hospitality when I visited him at his home in Ashbrittle and for the day we spent watching her movies. I am hugely grateful, too, to Paul Gorman for the fascinating insight he gave me into the fashion of the 1960s; Robert O’Byrne for both his knowledge and his wonderful book on the history of Luggala; and to Joe Joyce for his brilliant history of the Guinness family.

  The staff of Luggala were not only helpful but very welcoming every time I visited, especially Frances Gillespie, Kristina Jambrovich, John Welsby and the late Nicholas Myers.

  For assisting in other valuable ways, I would like to thank Stuart Bell, Douglas Binder, Tony Boylan, Bob Cavallo, James Cawley, Clive Chapman, Adam Cooper, Richie Conroy, David Crampton, Michael de las Casas, Michael Fanning, Nicholas Farrell, Mary Finnegan, Brian Foley, Christopher Haslam, Harry Havelin, Tom Heatley, Sarah Janson, Philippa Kindersley, Chloe Lonsdale, Ivana Lowell, Robin McNeill, Peter MacSherry, Roderic O’Connor, Gordon Orenbuch, Robin Rhoderick-Jones, Mark St John, Mildred Trail, Gabriel Waddington, Miles Wilkins and Susan Wylie-Roberts.

  I am very grateful to the staff of the British Library’s newspaper archive in Colindale and the National Library in Dublin for their help in finding newspapers, and to Sean McCarthy and Richard Howard for conducting additional research for me.

  But research is only part of the job of producing a book like this. This story would not have been told were it not for the encouragement and support of my agent, Faith O’Grady, and the belief of Paul Baggaley of Picador, whose enthusiasm for the subject from the very beginning happily matched my own. It has been a pleasure to work with Paul and the rest of the Picador team, especially Kris Doyle, Luke Brown and Nicole Foster, who all worked on the manuscript and made excellent suggestions.