King Charles’s goddaughter has shared harrowing details of her grandfather’s assassination.
India Hicks appeared on this week’s episode of The Royal Record podcast, where she spoke in depth about the assassination of her grandfather, Lord Louis Mountbatten, in 1979.
She was also promoting her new book, which hit the shelves on September 3, titled ‘Lady Pamela: My Mother’s Extraordinary Years as Daughter to the Viceroy of India, Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen, and Wife of David Hicks’.
GB News’s Royal Correspondent, Cameron Walker, said: “Growing up and being part of the royal world, as you say, has moments of extreme happiness, but it also had some real tragic moments.
King Charles’s goddaughter shares harrowing details of her grandfather’s assassination
GB News / PA
“In the book, you speak in detail about the murder of your grandfather, Lord Mountbatten, in Ireland. What are your memories of that day, and how do you think it affected your mother?”
Hicks responded: “The reason that I wrote about it, as you say in detail, is because, of course, my mother would never have talked about it really before.
“But I think there’s a very good lesson to be learnt from that which is about understanding and grief.
“We were, as a family, very much told this extraordinary tragedy has happened, but we will hold no bitterness and we will only look forward. We will not let the horror of this invade our lives and ruin our family.
King Charles, the then-Prince of Wales, reading at Mountbatten’s funeral
PA
“My aunt was extraordinary in setting that example, so we have always looked forward from that time.”
Hicks’s aunt, Patricia Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, was on the boat that killed Lord Mountbatten.
Despite being severely injured, Patricia survived the attack, along with her husband John Knatchbull and son Timothy.
India Hicks continued: “When I think back to the day it happened and the days that followed, my mother was really the only adult on the ground at the time.
India Hicks spoke about her late grandfather in this week’s episode of The Royal Record
GB News
“Her father had been murdered, her sister was on a life support machine, and her sister’s mother-in-law died the next day.
“Of course, most tragically of all, our wonderful boat lad died as well. And my cousin, Nicholas Knatchbull, along with the dachshund.
“So it wasn’t just my grandfather who, at 79, had spent most of his life on a boat. He probably could have accepted that that was a way that he might have died, but he would never have accepted the murder of the others at all.
“However, as I said, we did move forward from it. It was extraordinary to see how my mother dealt with and coped with that. I think it is a lesson to us all.”
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India Hicks (second from the left) as a bridesmaid at Princess Diana’s wedding to King CharlesPA
Svar Nanan-Sen, the Digital Royal Editor, said: “Is it right that you were supposed to be on the boat with your grandfather, but chose to stay behind to watch a film?”
Hicks responded: “That is right, actually. One always looks back at those moments and thinks, where was I at that actual moment? And I can remember it vividly. There was a lot of chaos afterwards, but I remember hearing the explosion.
“Interestingly, actually, I was probably saved by the fact that I have a very sweet tooth, and I’d been promised a trip to the sweet store to get an ice cream.
“So I stayed with my brother watching Laurel and Hardy in one of the downstairs rooms when the boat exploded.
“But I had been with my grandfather the day before out there with him. He loved to go shrimping.”