Tara was the given and temporary name of an illegally commandeered villa (a squat in more recent terms) on Gezira Island, Cairo, made notorious by its occupants during World War II.

[1][2] The group of Special Operations Executive agents who lived there, together with Countess Zofia (Sophie) Tarnowska,[3][4] turned the villa into a centre of high life excess.

She moved in with her few possessions (a bathing costume, an evening gown, a uniform and two pet mongooses), and had her reputation in the all-male household protected by a fictitious chaperone, "Madame Khayatt", who suffered from "distressingly poor health"[1] and was always indisposed when visitors asked after her.

The residents adopted nicknames: "Princess Dneiper-Petrovsk" (Sophie Tarnowska) and the young buccaneers, "Sir Eustace Rapier" (Billy McLean), "the Marquis of Whipstock" (David Smiley), "the Hon.

[5]Tarnowska drew on memories of liqueur-making on her father's estates to produce the party drinks, adding plums, apricots, and peaches to raw alcohol (as a substitute for vodka) purchased from the local garage, in the bath.