Tara's devastating secret illness in her own words: How the former IT girl revealed her brain tumour just three months before her death 

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Exactly a fortnight ago, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson was photographed for the last time walking outside her flat in London.

And the shocking news of the socialite's death aged 45 from a brain tumour at her home was revealed today, just two weeks after that picture was taken on January 25.

Back in November last year, the former It girl told the Mail's REBECCA HARDY the shocking news of her diagnosis. Here, we look back at an extract from the interview.

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson is pictured for the last time outside her flat in London on January 25

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson arrives early, which is not like Tara at all. More often than not the high-as-a-kite, never-out-of-the-gossip-columns Tara we've known since she burst into the national consciousness more than two decades ago would turn up (if she turned up at all) three days late.

'I'm not the person I was,' says the former It-Girl. 'I'm much calmer. I don't go to places like Ibiza because the party world scares me.

'I've gone completely the other way. I'm a very quiet person now, and I like being that person. I have a better perspective on life.

'It used to really matter what people thought and said about me. Now, it doesn't bother me whether people write that I'm off my face, on my face, in my face, whatever. It's all pretty trivial compared to . . . compared to . . .' The sentence ends in tears as Tara points to her forehead.

It is impossible not to want to weep with her. For since January, the 44-year-old has been treated for a brain tumour. The growth in her pituitary gland was discovered following numerous blood tests after she began to feel terribly run down the previous summer.

'I went to the doctors to talk about my latest blood test results when I got back from skiing in January,' she says. 'I said: 'What does this mean? Can you translate it?' And the doctor said: 'As I suspected, you have a brain tumour.'

Former It-girl: One of the last times Tara Palmer-Tomkinson was photographed, in November

'I got terribly frightened. I started thinking, 'I'm going to die, I'm going to die. I've only got a couple of weeks to live.' Stuff like that.

'It's that word, isn't it? But then one of the doctors said: 'Hang on a minute, would it help if you called it a wart or a growth?'

The growth in Tara's pituitary gland was discovered following numerous blood tests after she began to feel terribly run down

'They said: 'Tara, yes, it's a big scary word which you will keep hearing — but don't get out of control over it. A tumour can go across the board of many different things.'

'I actually feel very lucky. My growth was non-malignant but it affected the production of prolactin [a hormone]. I've been with people who have malignant brain tumours so I don't want to be like, 'Hey look at me'.

'I have been, touch wood,' she reaches out to touch the oak coffee table in front of her 'luckier. I've taken medication and, thankfully, it seems to have gone away for now.'

She added: 'My family has this motto: 'It's always sunny at the top.' As a child, when we were skiing, you'd wake up and it would be a cloudy day with no visibility, so no one else would go skiing.

'That was not for us. My father would say, 'Come on — out of bed', and we'd trudge to the cable car, skis on our shoulders.

'Then, there's that moment when the cable car breaks through the cloud. It's indescribable. You absolutely feel on top of the world. You have cloud beneath you, blue sky above you and an empty mountain. I used to think I was in paradise.

'I feel I'm breaking through the cloud with this. The sun is coming out. I am not going to be that person who lies in bed feeling a victim because of what's happened. I'm going to get on with my business and grab life by the horns.

'A party doesn't have to be full of lights and music. The party is what you want it to be — and my party isn't over.'

Read the full interview by clicking here 

Visiting flood-hit Thailand and taking a tour around Net-a-Porter's offices in London: Tara's last tweets

The last picture Tara Palmer-Tomkinson tweeted, from Net-a-Porter's offices

Tara Palmer-Tomkinson's last tweet was posted on January 11, encouraging others to vote in the National TV Awards.

But three days earlier she had posted about witnessing the flooding devastation that had hit the Thai island Koh Samui.

She tweeted on January 8: 'I'm home! The floods, disruptions in Koh Samui, beyond horrendous. What I witnessed, experienced at the airport, disruption, chaos, trauma.

'However, it was SO emotionally overwhelming, the kindness of everyone helping everyone, and my prayers are with those still stuck.'

Hundreds of families on the holiday island were left homeless, bridges were down and many roads became impassable beneath the floodwater.

And the last picture she posted of herself was at the Net-a-Porter offices in London on November 29.

She captioned it by saying: 'Honoured to be the first person to experience backstage tour! Thank you to all at Net-a-Porter, aka "The eighth wonder of the world"!'