Post by JoJo on Jul 3, 2009 17:34:07 GMT -5
The Macs - Mike McCartney's Family Album
A couple of interesting passages about Tara Browne..
PARIS II
The second time I went to Paris was at the request of young Tara Browne. Tara was a Guinness heir (and a right honourable one at that). I was a Beatle brother .:. so we had mop and hop tops in common (or should I say commons, as Tara's Dad was in the House of Lords).
Being two gay young blades, one with too much money, the other with not a lot of sense, we believed in living life to the swingin' London full, but when Tara suggested we go to Paris for a week or so, I had to admit to him that I wasn't that well off.
'Oh, don't worry Mike ... I'll pay the difference.'
Being of stubborn, Liverpool working-class stock, with great Northern pride, I readily agreed (vive la difference), and as my passport was in the Pool and I was in Tara's Eaton Row Mews house, a provisional passport was arranged and we were on the next flight to gay Paree.
At the airport to meet us was a chauffeur with the most extraordinary Mercedes I'd ever seen. It was so long it looked as if a bit had been stuck in the middle. This magnificent creature (and the Merc) floated us to Boulevard Suchet in the posh Trocadero part of Paris, where we disembarked into the wrought iron lift which zoomed us slowly to the roof garden apartment.
Tara's mum, the Lady Oranmore and Browne was in the south of France, so Tara showed me round the Magritte-littered lounge (this was the first time I'd seen a Magritte 'live'- so that's what Vadim was on about ... not at all fishy, but very tasty) and up to the bedrooms.
'Shall we share bedrooms?' he asked.
'Oops!' I thought. We didn't know each other that well, and here is a gay young titled gentleman asking me to go to bed with him. * Because I was a contrary child, there were two things I never took up at school ...
smoking, and a crush on B.B.
'you mind it we have separate bedrooms ... I snore
'Not at all, see you downstairs in half an hour.'
I needn't have bothered. Tara was as straight as a dye; he was just
being courteous.
After a shower, I dried off in head-to-toe towels, had a lie down, (the champagne on the plane was mainly to blame), and we met downstairs in the more than comfortable lounge (with a telly in the bookcase ... disguised as books!).
'Right! Show me Paris ... I missed it last time as I was feeling a little gay.'
Tara showed me Paree all right; the chauffeur-driven Merc took us to La Coupole for a drink and a bump into Vidal Sassoon, then to a beautiful little restaurant called La Petite Bedon where I had my first sparrow in red wine (I think they called it quail but whatever it was, it was excellent). The pot-bellied chef even came to our table, he didn't do anything ... just came to our table. And then on to the gay Paris nightclubs, where some ale was supped, eventually ending up at Castell's ... the club of the day.
Here we were checked in by a beautiful, cool Paris lady, who spoke not a soupspoon of English.
'I fancy that,' I overstated to Tara.
'That's our Letty, it's good to know her.'
'Letty,' dictated I as a mental note, as we descended the Castellian stairs to debauchery. We were posing in the middle of our whisky and Cokes when through the dark, staggered the Yardbirds. As soon as they saw me they chirped in perfect unison'Today's Monday, today's Monday, Monday's washing day, is everybody'appy?
You betcha life we are' (Scaffold's first resounding, but popular flop).
It's lovely being loved, but Tara and I were there for the serious purpose of enjoying ourselves, so we opened the Castell cage door, sent them flying, and continued with our night-time revelry alongside beautiful, black and white, pencil thin models, and me popping upstairs to let Letty in on the fact that my intentions were entirely honourable.
Just as dawn was breaking (or was it Francoise) we swayed gently out of the 'in' club and across to the restaurant opposite, where we nearly got in a fight over our chilli con carne (because I hadn't clicked with Letty at the nightclub ... if the truth were known).
As we emerged to the even chillier French morning, as if by magic the limo drew up and we fell in. He'd been waiting all night! Being working class and drunk (what could be worse!), I gave the chauffeur hell for not joining us in the night club.
All at once, in the early Parisian morning light, we were faced with a strange predicament. The limousine was suddenly surrounded by thousands of French cyclists on their way to work ... all facing us. Either we were in a one-way street or they were cycling backwards. Whatever, it was a stalemate, and we all stopped.
The gruff garlic comments from yer actual working-class Frenchies could be felt through the Mercedes skin. I put myself in their position: I've been up all night after drinking pastis, with the petite monstrebaby ... shouting above the Pierre Douglas Show, the wife nags at me over coffee and France Soir ... I climb on me cold velo bike ... cycle through the freezing five o'clock rain . . . join my thousands of Parisian rat-pack colleagues. .. and there in the middle of the narrow City rue is a long black car going the wrong way, containing two young, drunk, mop-top goldfish (not only that ... it's a bosch car). Let's just say that if we were in the middle of a revolution and there was a Bastille nearby, they would have simply said 'Off wiz les cochons 'eads,' before carrying on to work.
Luckily, one of my many disguises is as the Scarlet Pimpernel and indicating a secret side-street escape route to the chauffeur, we avoided the hoard of Robespierrean Rats and headed for the safety of our Magrittien mansion (zey seek us here, zey seek us zere, zose damp froggies seek us everywhere).
More power-packed Parisian nights followed with the inevitable falling in love with me by Letty and many torrid nights of 'love' were enjoyed by all. In contrast to 'being in love' with Celia, here was a woman who taught me how to make love with more positions than an Indian Yoga teacher would dare to attempt, and all in French!
Tara's mum, Lady Oranmore and Browne, paid us a visit in the middle of these 'sumestas' and after my customary Butler-served fresh orange juice I felt slightly apprehensive about my first meeting with the upper crust lady matriarch (particularly with a bit of French fluff in the bedroom)!
Once again, I needn't have worried ...'Oonagh' turned out to be one of the warmest, coolest, quick-witted, most subtle women I'd ever met, and she made us both most welcome. She was a lady, but not just the 'lady' in the title ... a real lady. I call her'Mum', she calls me'Dad', and we shall remain friends till the end.
Another passage:
TARAR TARA
In early 1966 Tara asked me if I would like to drive his AC Cobra two-seater sports car outside his Eaton Mews previously Eaton Row Belgravia home (round the corner from Buckingham Palace and Brian Epstein's Chapel Street* house). I put the beast into first gear and VROOMSHKA! it nearly took off without me, such was its power. After reaching 140 mph in second gear, I also reached the conclusion that small cars with big engines were too powerful for me. I stopped it and got out.
Later that year I accompanied Tara and his wife Nicky (MacSherry) to a Liverpool court, where he was fined for speeding on his entry to our fair (cop) city. When Nicky took off for more private parts, young Tara came to stay at 'Rembrandt' for a couple of days and as my brother was up from London, they smoked one of them silly ciggies together and insisted on going to cousin Bett's home on our two small motorbikes.
A couple of hundred yards from Bett's, Paul took the bend too closely and flew the rest of the way ... causing severe facial injuries to one half of his baby face. On his return to 'Rembrandt' he insisted on me taking a memento of the occasion with my birthday Nikon camera.
'Are you sure, it looks pretty "bloody" awful.'
'Yes, because it's the truth,' (it was the way, the truth, the light up another one period).
'OK, be it on your own face,' ... click. †'
Soon afterwards (when the stitches were sewn by Pip the family doctor, with his maternity bag suture needle, and whose hand started to shake when he realised his artwork would be judged from then on with every photo taken of Paul) Tara broomed across the sea to Ireland.
In January 1966 I was twenty-two, in April Tara was twenty-one, and in June Paul was twenty-four. Tara was to inherit one million pounds on his twenty-fifth birthday, but on 18th December 1966 he went through red lights in his 110 mph Lotus Elan into the back of a parked van in South Kensington and was dead. A witness said: 'I saw the driver pinned like a doll in the wreck ... the steering wheel was bent like a flower stem.' On hearing the news of Tara's death, Brian 'Stone' Jones wept and said 'I'm numbed ... Tara was so full of life'.
† The fab pic was eventually stolen from Cave Avenue by a 'butler' and sold to an Italian mag to illustrate 'wild Beatle drug parties in swinging London'.
A couple of interesting passages about Tara Browne..
PARIS II
The second time I went to Paris was at the request of young Tara Browne. Tara was a Guinness heir (and a right honourable one at that). I was a Beatle brother .:. so we had mop and hop tops in common (or should I say commons, as Tara's Dad was in the House of Lords).
Being two gay young blades, one with too much money, the other with not a lot of sense, we believed in living life to the swingin' London full, but when Tara suggested we go to Paris for a week or so, I had to admit to him that I wasn't that well off.
'Oh, don't worry Mike ... I'll pay the difference.'
Being of stubborn, Liverpool working-class stock, with great Northern pride, I readily agreed (vive la difference), and as my passport was in the Pool and I was in Tara's Eaton Row Mews house, a provisional passport was arranged and we were on the next flight to gay Paree.
At the airport to meet us was a chauffeur with the most extraordinary Mercedes I'd ever seen. It was so long it looked as if a bit had been stuck in the middle. This magnificent creature (and the Merc) floated us to Boulevard Suchet in the posh Trocadero part of Paris, where we disembarked into the wrought iron lift which zoomed us slowly to the roof garden apartment.
Tara's mum, the Lady Oranmore and Browne was in the south of France, so Tara showed me round the Magritte-littered lounge (this was the first time I'd seen a Magritte 'live'- so that's what Vadim was on about ... not at all fishy, but very tasty) and up to the bedrooms.
'Shall we share bedrooms?' he asked.
'Oops!' I thought. We didn't know each other that well, and here is a gay young titled gentleman asking me to go to bed with him. * Because I was a contrary child, there were two things I never took up at school ...
smoking, and a crush on B.B.
'you mind it we have separate bedrooms ... I snore
'Not at all, see you downstairs in half an hour.'
I needn't have bothered. Tara was as straight as a dye; he was just
being courteous.
After a shower, I dried off in head-to-toe towels, had a lie down, (the champagne on the plane was mainly to blame), and we met downstairs in the more than comfortable lounge (with a telly in the bookcase ... disguised as books!).
'Right! Show me Paris ... I missed it last time as I was feeling a little gay.'
Tara showed me Paree all right; the chauffeur-driven Merc took us to La Coupole for a drink and a bump into Vidal Sassoon, then to a beautiful little restaurant called La Petite Bedon where I had my first sparrow in red wine (I think they called it quail but whatever it was, it was excellent). The pot-bellied chef even came to our table, he didn't do anything ... just came to our table. And then on to the gay Paris nightclubs, where some ale was supped, eventually ending up at Castell's ... the club of the day.
Here we were checked in by a beautiful, cool Paris lady, who spoke not a soupspoon of English.
'I fancy that,' I overstated to Tara.
'That's our Letty, it's good to know her.'
'Letty,' dictated I as a mental note, as we descended the Castellian stairs to debauchery. We were posing in the middle of our whisky and Cokes when through the dark, staggered the Yardbirds. As soon as they saw me they chirped in perfect unison'Today's Monday, today's Monday, Monday's washing day, is everybody'appy?
You betcha life we are' (Scaffold's first resounding, but popular flop).
It's lovely being loved, but Tara and I were there for the serious purpose of enjoying ourselves, so we opened the Castell cage door, sent them flying, and continued with our night-time revelry alongside beautiful, black and white, pencil thin models, and me popping upstairs to let Letty in on the fact that my intentions were entirely honourable.
Just as dawn was breaking (or was it Francoise) we swayed gently out of the 'in' club and across to the restaurant opposite, where we nearly got in a fight over our chilli con carne (because I hadn't clicked with Letty at the nightclub ... if the truth were known).
As we emerged to the even chillier French morning, as if by magic the limo drew up and we fell in. He'd been waiting all night! Being working class and drunk (what could be worse!), I gave the chauffeur hell for not joining us in the night club.
All at once, in the early Parisian morning light, we were faced with a strange predicament. The limousine was suddenly surrounded by thousands of French cyclists on their way to work ... all facing us. Either we were in a one-way street or they were cycling backwards. Whatever, it was a stalemate, and we all stopped.
The gruff garlic comments from yer actual working-class Frenchies could be felt through the Mercedes skin. I put myself in their position: I've been up all night after drinking pastis, with the petite monstrebaby ... shouting above the Pierre Douglas Show, the wife nags at me over coffee and France Soir ... I climb on me cold velo bike ... cycle through the freezing five o'clock rain . . . join my thousands of Parisian rat-pack colleagues. .. and there in the middle of the narrow City rue is a long black car going the wrong way, containing two young, drunk, mop-top goldfish (not only that ... it's a bosch car). Let's just say that if we were in the middle of a revolution and there was a Bastille nearby, they would have simply said 'Off wiz les cochons 'eads,' before carrying on to work.
Luckily, one of my many disguises is as the Scarlet Pimpernel and indicating a secret side-street escape route to the chauffeur, we avoided the hoard of Robespierrean Rats and headed for the safety of our Magrittien mansion (zey seek us here, zey seek us zere, zose damp froggies seek us everywhere).
More power-packed Parisian nights followed with the inevitable falling in love with me by Letty and many torrid nights of 'love' were enjoyed by all. In contrast to 'being in love' with Celia, here was a woman who taught me how to make love with more positions than an Indian Yoga teacher would dare to attempt, and all in French!
Tara's mum, Lady Oranmore and Browne, paid us a visit in the middle of these 'sumestas' and after my customary Butler-served fresh orange juice I felt slightly apprehensive about my first meeting with the upper crust lady matriarch (particularly with a bit of French fluff in the bedroom)!
Once again, I needn't have worried ...'Oonagh' turned out to be one of the warmest, coolest, quick-witted, most subtle women I'd ever met, and she made us both most welcome. She was a lady, but not just the 'lady' in the title ... a real lady. I call her'Mum', she calls me'Dad', and we shall remain friends till the end.
Another passage:
TARAR TARA
In early 1966 Tara asked me if I would like to drive his AC Cobra two-seater sports car outside his Eaton Mews previously Eaton Row Belgravia home (round the corner from Buckingham Palace and Brian Epstein's Chapel Street* house). I put the beast into first gear and VROOMSHKA! it nearly took off without me, such was its power. After reaching 140 mph in second gear, I also reached the conclusion that small cars with big engines were too powerful for me. I stopped it and got out.
Later that year I accompanied Tara and his wife Nicky (MacSherry) to a Liverpool court, where he was fined for speeding on his entry to our fair (cop) city. When Nicky took off for more private parts, young Tara came to stay at 'Rembrandt' for a couple of days and as my brother was up from London, they smoked one of them silly ciggies together and insisted on going to cousin Bett's home on our two small motorbikes.
A couple of hundred yards from Bett's, Paul took the bend too closely and flew the rest of the way ... causing severe facial injuries to one half of his baby face. On his return to 'Rembrandt' he insisted on me taking a memento of the occasion with my birthday Nikon camera.
'Are you sure, it looks pretty "bloody" awful.'
'Yes, because it's the truth,' (it was the way, the truth, the light up another one period).
'OK, be it on your own face,' ... click. †'
Soon afterwards (when the stitches were sewn by Pip the family doctor, with his maternity bag suture needle, and whose hand started to shake when he realised his artwork would be judged from then on with every photo taken of Paul) Tara broomed across the sea to Ireland.
In January 1966 I was twenty-two, in April Tara was twenty-one, and in June Paul was twenty-four. Tara was to inherit one million pounds on his twenty-fifth birthday, but on 18th December 1966 he went through red lights in his 110 mph Lotus Elan into the back of a parked van in South Kensington and was dead. A witness said: 'I saw the driver pinned like a doll in the wreck ... the steering wheel was bent like a flower stem.' On hearing the news of Tara's death, Brian 'Stone' Jones wept and said 'I'm numbed ... Tara was so full of life'.
† The fab pic was eventually stolen from Cave Avenue by a 'butler' and sold to an Italian mag to illustrate 'wild Beatle drug parties in swinging London'.
