India Hicks

0:00Amazon Pharmacy presents Painful Thoughts. It's been a long bumpy road dealing with yet another bladder infection. And driving to the pharmacy to pick up meds, I went over a pothole and a little pee came out. So now I get to stand in line with pee-pee pants. Next time, skip the pain and get fast free delivery with Amazon Pharmacy. Healthcare just got less painful.

0:30Have you ever been stuck on a weight loss plateau, trying everything and anything you can to lose that extra weight and reach peak health? We've all been there, but Noom's unlocked the secret to reaching the mountaintop. Go in micro. The Noom GLP-1 microdose program starts at$79 and is delivered to your door in seven days. Start your microdose GLP-1 journey today at Noom.com. That's N-O-O-M dot com. Noom. Microchanges. Big results. initial three-week subscription and four weeks of medication from$79 plus tax and$179 per month plus tax for 12-week subscription thereafter. Final pricing depends on program selection.

1:09Noom GLP-1-Rx program involves healthy diet, exercise, and support. Individual results may vary. Meds and personalization based on clinical need. Not reviewed by FDA for safety, efficacy, or quality. No affiliation with Novo Nordisk, Inc., the only U.S. source of FDA-approved semaglutide. Not available in all 50 U.S. states. D-U-B-E-S-O-R I'm coming to you backwards and forwards. This is Rosebud. I'm Joss Branforth. Cue the music.

1:57Welcome to Rosebud. I'm Giles Brandreth, and this has been a special week for Rosebud because we've been remembering our late Queen, Elizabeth II, born on the 21st of April 1926, 100 years ago. In London, there have been, well, events to mark the centenary, and I wanted us on Rosebud to meet people who might have known the Queen and could tell us interesting and surprising and unexpected stories about her. So on Tuesday our special guest was Major General Alistair Bruce who knew the Queen personally and told his story. It was quite fascinating to me and today I've got somebody I think very special indeed who actually was related to Elizabeth II because she is one of the descendants of Queen Victoria, because she belongs to the Mountbatten family.

2:50It's India Hicks. She's been a designer, a writer, a businesswoman. She was once upon a time a fashion model, spent much of her life in the Bahamas, but she's an international person. Her mother is Lady Pamela Hicks, who knew the late Queen well, and indeed, I think was with Elizabeth II on the very day that she became our queen back in 1952. India's story, her own story, is fascinating, and her insights on, well, on royal history, the royal family, indeed, about when she was a bridesmaid, a high-profile bridesmaid, at the wedding of Prince Charles, as he then was, the Prince of Wales, and Diana, who became Princess of Wales.

3:38It's quite a story. She's quite a guest. This is Rosebud with India Hicks. Cue the music.

3:58Oh, I'm so excited about the guest. I really am. Let me tell you her name, first of all. See if we've got the right person here. She's so... But I mustn't say anything. I must just give you her name. India Amanda Caroline Hicks. I got the name right. You have. Why are you called India Amanda Caroline? And you called Hicks because of your father. We'll come on to him who I met years ago when he had just decorated the apartment or the house of John Slesinger, the film director. Did you ever go to that house? I didn't. But when, of course, people say they met my father, I hesitate. I wait to see which of the David Hicks's you met.

4:41Have I got the one? You definitely have, but whether it was the tempestuous one or whether it was the very charming one. Oh. So I wait for that. He was effortlessly charming. Wonderful. You got the good one. Oh, well, clearly, this is a story we want to discover. So why are you called India Amanda and Caroline? India, because my grandfather was the last viceroy of India. This is Earl Mountbatten of Burma? Correct. And I was the last grandchild. So I was given the name, which, of course, back in 1967, 1967, it was very unusual, very unusual to have an unusual name. Yes, because now everyone's called Paris.

5:20Exactly. And it's so irritating. When I was growing up, of course, there were lots of, you know, Pakistan jokes and why you're called Pakistan. And I was always rather threatened by my name, rather embarrassed by my name. I wanted to be an Amanda or a Caroline. Now, of course, I'm irritated when I meet another India. What is their reason? And your reference to Pakistan is, of course, because your grandfather, Earl Mountbatten, was there at the time of the partition. Correct. When India and Pakistan were separated. Correct. And the old India became smaller, Pakistan became independent, etc. And we'll touch on, this is supposed to be about you, not about your grandparents, but they're fascinating people.

6:03Of course, your grandmother was supposed to have had an affair, or at least a relationship, with the Prime Minister of India. Absolutely, Nehru. Nehru. Most certainly had a relationship. Whether it was platonic love or physical love, no one probably except my mother really knows. And my mother absolutely maintains that it was a very, very deep relationship of mutual respect and adoration and love. but she fundamentally believes that Nero was a man of honour and he would never have actually physically been with the viceroy's wife. However my grandmother had had many affairs throughout her marriage as had my grandfather.

6:50Of course we're talking about a time and a generation and an upbringing where it was much more acceptable. And my grandmother was tricky. She was an amazing woman, amazing. And actually, whenever I'm asked, who would you like to have met in your life? I would have liked to have met her because she fascinates me. Edwina Mountbatten. Edwina Mountbatten. It's her name, isn't it? Yes. But she was, I think, tricky. And my mother said it was when she was in love with Nero, she became much easier to be around. And of course, those 18 months of transition during the transition of power which really was a poisoned chalice.

7:29This is 1947-48. Correct. 47 they went out there and my grandfather was asked to go out there and his mother said don't go Dickie this is the dirty work of the politicians but my grandfather very much feeling that duty and service came before anything went out there. So my mother who is 97 about to be 97 has very, very clear memories of all of that time and it's fascinating to hear her talk. I mean, I wonder if there is anyone else living today who has sat next to Mahatma Gandhi at a prayer meeting, not in a crowd listening, but sat next to him. And there's an amazing photograph of them both sitting on a stage, on a platform, not a stage.

8:13Because he was assassinated in 1947, wasn't he? Yes, but my mother obviously got to know him very well to begin with because when they arrived in India, obviously Gandhi was very, very involved in the transition. But she's fascinating about the command of the crowd that Gandhi could hold when you had hundreds of thousands of people gather to listen to the great man speak. My mother said you could hear a pin drop because everybody hung on what he was saying. And what is interesting, because I've seen photographs of those sorts of gatherings, is you are talking about hundreds of thousands and only the people, the first few thousand, could have heard him.

8:50Well, I wondered about that. Or were there loudspeakers? There were loudspeakers. If you see some of the images, you can see there are loudspeakers beyond. But I think what my mother was trying to illustrate today is a gathering of that size would never be peaceful now. They would be coming in protest or they'd be coming angry. And then it was to listen and to learn and to be informed. And your grandfather, I mean, we're getting completely ahead of ourselves, we're only on the first name, India, We've got to go through Amanda and Caroline in a moment. We haven't done Amanda and Caroline yet. But let's just finish on your grandfather.

9:22You say, almost casually, they were of a generation where, in fact, your grandfather's phrase, I'm quoting now the Philip Ziegler biography, which I think is probably the most accurate. Would you agree? Yes, because it was certainly, yeah, warts and all. He quotes him saying that, yes, well, you know, we hopped in and out of a variety of beds over the years. and you say well it was more done in those days I think it was maybe more done in a certain class in those days I'm not sure everybody was doing that am I wrong I have no idea I have no idea you may well be right but I think what is in a way it's not admirable certainly but at least they were honest about their relationships and with each other whereas I think today many people may still be hopping in and out of each other's beds and much less honest about it.

10:18We're a very puritanical generation now, considering the chaos that we're causing to this world. Did your grandparents, Earl Mountbatten and Edwina Mountbatten, such a famous couple from the 1920s onwards in all the society pages, etc., from what you know from your mother, did they get on well together? Were they a good partnership? Yes. And I think they were a remarkable partnership. I mean, to begin with, my grandmother, I mean, it was an extraordinary union in the fact that my grandfather came, he was related to nearly every royal family, every European royal family, and came with this extraordinary legacy and heritage.

10:59my grandmother came with a vast fortune and great beauty so together it was a very formidable marriage and I think to begin with they were very in love and then my grandmother was probably very unsettled and now I'm a 58 year old woman and I look back and she died aged 59 and I look back and I think she must have felt the such constraints at the time of being a woman who actually had enormous skills and this incredible power for organization. She had an enormous Rolodex. She knew everybody. And yet for the first part of her life, she had nothing to do. And there are parts of my life where I look back and think, goodness, if only I'd known that I could have done more.

11:44And even though I'm living in this day and age, this strange upbringing. But my grandmother, once the war broke out, she found herself. And she then really dedicated herself to other people. And she, to go back to your original question, whether a good partnership, she became very instrumental in a lot of the work that my grandfather was doing. Not only was he admiral of the fleet, he was chief of combined operations during the war and then went on to be Viceroy of India. And so having her beside him as Vicerine was very important. And during the war, she was extraordinary. She got to the most senior position any woman could in St.

12:26John Ambulance. And once the Japanese surrender happened, they knew they needed to get out to those concentration camps. And many of them, they didn't even know where they were because they were deep in the jungles. And men, literally on their last legs, needed to be repatriated. And my grandfather thought, who can I trust and get to go out to do this extraordinary work that needs to be done so quickly? And he enlisted my grandmother. And she went with just one assistant. And they went deep into the jungles. And she would go to these concentration camps. And they would say, my goodness, you're the first white woman we've seen for years, probably.

13:06And she would then identify which of them needed to be flown back first. and she worked incredibly hard. I'm giving a tiny, tiny little look into a much broader book of work that she did. There are many chapters to that work she did. I met your grandfather, Lord Mountbatten, once at the Garrick Club in London and he was coming up the stairs with Richard Attenborough, Dickie Attenborough, and of course he was Dickie Mountbatten. And my friend got me to my feet and dragged me towards them and as he said, oh look Charles, the two dickies together at last and presented me as though I was some prized specimen to them and of course your grandfather was effortlessly charming and he had about him the aura of a great man and my friend said, of course, he's a friend, he's a friend of Noel, coward implying there was a touch of the bisexual about him I don't know, is that true or not?

14:05But he was eager to dismisses that, doesn't he? He does. All I can say is my grandfather definitely had an eye for women and evidently. So I think very unfounded, very unfounded. He certainly enjoyed the brilliance and the cleverness of the gay world where you've got very brilliant people in it. And Noel Coward was indeed a friend. In fact, when my parents married in 1961 in Rumsey, my father was at that stage an emerging designer. And it was in January. And there was an enormous snowstorm the night before the wedding. So Rumsey and Hampshire was in a blanket of white. And Noel Coward, who went as a guest the next day, said, now this is taking decorating too far.

14:55We must get through these names. And then we get to get to the first question. otherwise we'll have run out of time so we know you're india that's an amazing thing to be called india because your grandfather was the last viceroy to be named after not just a country but a continent is amazing has it actually do you are you conscious of that that it's that it's you're not just called india because it sounds nice and lots of people are called india now you're probably the first person to be called india rather like hayley mills everyone called hayley is called Hayley because of Hayley Mills. People called Wendy because of Peter Pan.

15:28People called India because of you. Well, that would be, and I carry the name with great honour because of the history that comes with it. And when I was 18, I went to India and I'm exceptionally close to my mother. We do a lot together. We've had many adventures together. We love to travel. And when I asked her if she would come with me to India, it was the first time I'd heard a no from my mother. And she said she didn't want to go back because it had changed so much from the extraordinary India that she lived through. She had many, many Indian friends, in fact, probably more Indian friends than English, certainly when she came back from that time.

16:11And in fact, I think had trouble settling back into England because she'd seen this other world and this fascinating world of multi-faith and multi-race. And it wasn't the confines of the English upbringing she'd had. So when she said no, I asked my aunt, who was then Countess Mountbatten Obama, if she would come. And so I traveled with Timothy Natural and my aunt. And we did it in two ways. Tim and I, first of all, went out backpacking. And we would stay in youth hostels that cost 69 P a night, and you'd get a bucket outside your room to wash in. And then my aunt joined us, and we did it in a very different way.

16:48And we stayed with wonderful Maharajas and in palaces and saw the other side of India. But I think it was very important that I saw both sides and understood this extraordinary country and the dynamics of it. Amanda. Well, my mother and father maintained that after giving me quite an exotic name, India, they wanted to give me two easier names. And so they just chose Amanda Caroline for no reason at all. And they're very nice English names. Very nice. Nice gal's names. OK. India, Amanda, Caroline Hicks. Born, you reveal the year, which I wasn't going to because people seeing the photograph wouldn't believe it.

17:26But born on the 5th of September in 1967. What, India, is your very first memory? Isn't it funny because you get to the stage of craft. Do you know what craft is, Giles? Can't remember a flipping thing. Very good. I wasn't going to say the flipping. I was going to say the other one. The much stronger one. It's much more fun. But oddly, one does have early, early memories, whether it's sound or smell. And mine is sort of both a sound and a movement. I remember being in one of those extraordinary prams with the big bonnet over it. And I remember being pushed. We grew up in a very beautiful house called Britwell in Britwell Salome.

18:10And at the bottom of the estate. Where is this? Britwell? In Britwell Salome in Oxfordshire. My mother lives two fields away from Brickwell House now. She lives in the Dower House. And I remember being pushed by a nanny, and I remember the feeling of this very crunchy gravel and the sound of it. And that probably is one of my earliest memories in the Beechwood, where I still walk and I push my mother today in her wheelchair. We'll go for a walk through the Beechwood together. Now tell me about this mother of yours. You are part, inevitably, of this extraordinary family, the Mountbatons. and as you've mentioned I do remember being reminded of this by the late Duke of Edinburgh who was a cousin of yours first cousin of your mother and aunt that both he and the late Queen were both great great grandchildren of Queen Victoria but he had the advantage of being related on every side to every royal family there's not a King Kaiser Tsar that he was not related to and consequently you are related let's face it you are more royal than the royals even though you're only I think at the last count 682nd in line to the throne and that may be changing you may be moving up a place who knows who knows and really not terribly significant not terribly significant and we hope it never comes to pass so you come from this interesting family we established your grandparents were I knew your aunt the elder's sister who was a remarkable lady and you mentioned that she's Countess Mountbatten of Burma because your father contrived in the way that it's very rare to have the peerage go down through the female line.

19:50Correct grandfather but yes correct absolutely yes and I think isn't isn't that a wonderful thing instead of having it die out and also in this day and age really can it not be passed to a woman so I think I think now it makes it makes great sense but my grandfather was you know he was very forward thinking. In fact, you're asking about my mother. One of the things my grandfather insisted for both of his daughters was that they kept diaries. But my mother religiously wrote a diary. So I did a book on her last year called Lady Pamela. It actually began because Penguin Random House came to us and said, we would love to do a book on your mother on her years of the Queen.

20:29The Queen had just died. And of course, my mother went on two Commonwealth tours with the Queen. The fascinating part of this story is that my mother was actually with the Queen the moment she became Queen. So she describes Princess Elizabeth going up that ladder at treetops in Kenya where they had the weekend off to look at the watering hole where the animals all come. Back in England, the King unexpectedly, only aged 56, dies. The world hears the news except for the royal party who are in this very roommate spot. she goes up the ladder as Princess Elizabeth and she comes down as a queen of course they go back to Senga Lodge and it took some time for the news to reach them again the really extraordinary part of this story recounted by my mother is that it then took them some time to leave Senga Lodge to get back to Nairobi for the queen obviously to return to England to ascend to the throne by the time they reached the airport the world's press had learned the news and had descended on the airport as a sign of respect for our Queen in mourning.

21:33They put their cameras on the ground. There is not one photograph of the Queen leaving Nairobi Airport. Isn't that an amazing thing today? It is amazing. Am I right, though, and your mother will have told you this, that the Queen, though she was only 25 years of age, remained through this calm, to say serene isn't quite right, but controlled, calm, measured, and was thoughtful of others? That's absolutely right. In fact, she said to the very small royal party gathered when the news came through, she said, I am so sorry, but this means we're going to have to return to England. The person I think who took it worse was Prince Philip.

22:11And when he heard the news, Mike Parker said, who was the private secretary, said he covered his face with the newspaper and said, this is going to be devastating. So I did the book on my mother and we've luckily caught some kind of algorithm and the book has sold incredibly well. It's a beautiful picture book. But I think being 97 years and still alive, people are fascinated by this extraordinary life that will never happen again. It was a very unique life, even though my mother afterwards really sort of lived in the shadows. I mean, at one stage, I wanted to call it out of the shadow because she lived in the shadow of her great parents.

22:48She lived in the shadow of her extraordinary older sister. She lived in the shadow of David Hicks. But she never wanted to be in the limelight. So it was only once I started the research that I realised, actually, this life, even though it may have been in the shadows, was equally as brilliant as all the rest. Give us a picture of her when you were a little girl. What sort of a mother was she to you? I was lucky. I was very close to her. And she, by the time I came alive, I've got an older brother and sister who were very much brought up by nannies. And my mother was travelling with my father as a sort of dutiful wife and a lot with my grandfather because he needed to have a hostess or a companion with him.

23:27Because his wife had died. Correct. But really, by the time I came along, my mother was much more at home. And we share the same sense of humour. We share the same love of Charbonne-Walker chocolates. We share the same love for ridiculous Dachshunds. So we get on very, very well. So I think I was very lucky in not only her being at home, but also us just getting on well as people. So we're very close. Yes. Tell me about a row with her. Have you ever had a row with her? Never. Really? Never. But she had many rows. Well, she didn't actually. That's not right. But I was going to tell a wonderful story of my father who did like to row, but my mother wouldn't row back.

24:04But the only time that I've ever heard of her actually raising her voice at him when he became so tiresome over something, she took her glass of Coca-Cola and threw it over him. Of course, it missed him and it hit the wall. And much to her annoyance, David looked at the wall and said, brilliant. And then he did a series of Coca-Cola colored walls in a deep, dark brown and great lacquer and shine.

24:41Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts. Why did I search the Internet for answers to my cold sore problem? Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic sores in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history, but I can never unsee that. Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Healthcare just got less painful. Have you ever been stuck on a weight loss plateau, trying everything and anything you can to lose that extra weight and reach peak health? We've all been there, but Noom's unlocked the secret to reaching the mountaintop.

25:22Go in micro. The Noom GLP-1 microdose program starts at$79 and is delivered to your door in 7 days. Start your microdose GLP-1 journey today at Noom.com. That's N-O-O-M dot com. Noom. Microchanges. Big results. Initial 3-week subscription and 4 weeks of medication from$79 plus tax and$179 per month plus tax for 12-week subscription thereafter. Final pricing depends on program selection. Noom GLP-1RX program involves healthy diet, exercise, and support. Individual results may vary. Meds and personalization based on clinical need. Not reviewed by FDA for safety, efficacy, or quality. No affiliation with Novo Nordisk, Inc., the only U.S.

26:02source of FDA-approved semaglutide. Not available in all 50 U.S. states. Blue Air is the official air care partner of the New York Knicks because performance starts at home. Blue Signature air purifiers remove dust, smoke and city pollution so you sleep better and wake up ready ShopBlueAir.com So who was he and how did they meet? He was unusual, he was definitely a tricky dad but he was an extraordinary man and really set the world alight with these vibrating, never clashing vibrating color schemes of pinks and purples and puces, mixing old with new geometrics. And he went on to do gardens. I mean, he was brilliant in his design.

26:46They met at a cocktail party. He, of course, was very, very spellbound by a Matt Batten's daughter, who at the time was very famous and unmarried, clearly unmarried, but sort of unmarried at the age where people were beginning to think, is she ever going to get married? And my father was devastatingly good looking and very unusual to my mother. She hadn't really encountered that kind of exciting 1960s world. Obviously, she came from this very, you know, this very strong, obvious world of aristocracy. And David Hicks was different, completely different. And I think she fell in love with that. I also think because she'd had such an unusual life, she wanted something that was unusual.

27:30Is it comparable at all Princess Margaret and Tony Snowden? Yes it is probably slightly yeah. Because they were I mean I knew Tony Snowden quite well and he was as it were the artistic one who rather enjoyed being a bit maverick a bit different. Yeah certainly. Being part of the establishment but also wanted to tweak the nose of the establishment. Yes Mike well you know Tony he said was established an establishment and my father wasn't definitely my father was born in Essex you know he did not come from that world but he learned to shoot and fish and and ride extremely well not fishing so much but he learned to shoot and ride extremely well and he did shake up the quiet English drawing room with these amazing ideas of design and what age were they when they got together?

28:23I think my mother was sort of late, late 20s. Which in those days was quite unusual. Yes. And because she was who she was, the daughter of who she was, she was often in the gossip columns and in Tatler when she was out and about, photographs of her. Well, less in gossip columns and Tatler because she was quite reclusive. She was, you know, my mother was very happy to sit on a sofa and read and be very, very quiet. And when she came back from India and two Commonwealth tours, she really was quite exhausted. She'd also had a childhood of being moved around all the time. So she wasn't a full-time lady-in-waiting for the Queen.

28:57She was just occasionally, as a kind of friend of the family, she was brought on board to help out. Correct. She did the two Commonwealth tours and then stayed on a bit. She didn't want to be a lady-in-waiting. It wasn't really a role for her. But yes, that's exactly right. She stayed on. You know, one of my, I think, great privileges in life is that I got to accompany my mother to our late Queen's funeral. And as you know, only too well, there were two funerals, one in London and one in Windsor. The one in London was, as you know, you were there, spectacular on every level, moving to a degree.

29:32But the one in Windsor was even more emotional and amazing when we arrived, if you remember the smell of those flowers that had been laid out on the long walk. But to me, I will never forget, My mother was, she wanted to go in the wheelchair because she was finding walking difficult at that stage. And we went in and we were in the front row. She was in her wheelchair. And when the Queen's coffin came by, my mother whispered to me, get me up. And I heaved her up out of that wheelchair. And she went down into the deepest of curtsies. And she kept in that deep curtsy until that very slow moving coffin had walked all the way past.

30:09And then and only then did she get back up. The other amazing thing is, of course, and this comes back to the duty and service of that generation. When the Queen died, there is obviously in the royal court, the royal horse had a period of mourning where you would be dressed appropriately in black, which I think is a month. And my mother, quite alone in Oxfordshire, dressed in black every day for a month. I said, Mum, no one's going to see you. It's all right. No, she wore black every day. This is a centenary of the birth of the late Queen. What has your mother told you about why she felt this way about her?

30:53I think because the Queen set such an example of duty and service. And when I did the book on my mother, the Times newspaper came and asked, could they do an article? and they did a wonderful article and they asked what were her life lessons and my mother put at the top before family and loyalty before yes before family and loyalty she put duty and service she said they're just words we don't hear enough of today and some would say that a commitment to duty and service was possibly at the expense of family most certainly absolutely and and you know I think if you are born, well, you're not even born to be a queen, you become a queen.

31:38I think there is something that is right about that. I think there is something right about that. You know, of course, monarchy is modernizing and rightly so. The world needs to change. And I think we're seeing a generation, particularly William and Catherine, who are getting it right. They are. They're dedicated, but they're also very involved parents. But I think when our Queen was away on those Commonwealth tours, it was impractical and it would never have worked to take two young children that far for that long. And of course, they didn't have the options of the flights that we have now. So it just was a different time.

32:16I remember the Duke of Edinburgh telling me about that first tour, 1953, after the coronation. He said to me that in Australia, he said more than a million people came out one day, more than a million people. And he said if the Queen had taken that for her personally, it would have been corrosive. But she didn't. She was totally the same person with a million people or one. What was your personal impression? Did you spend much time with the Queen? She was a godmother of my sister. But no, I didn't spend, you know, it wasn't that kind of upbringing. We were very lucky in going to Trooping of the Colour and being on that amazing balcony and seeing the inner workings of the courtyards and her arriving back and with silver trays with carrots for the horses.

32:57It was all wonderful and magical. I haven't lived that life for a very long time. I left England when I was 18 and I've really lived overseas since. She was a very good godmother to my sister and involved, but I didn't have that kind of relationship with her. So how come the present king, I think I'm right in saying, is your godfather? He is. One of your godfathers. He is. And how did that come about then? Because you were a baby. I was. You wouldn't have known. but my i imagine my mother and father felt that after my sister had the queen and my brother had prince philip that it would make sense that uh they asked prince charles absolutely correct correct yeah and was he i mean he was a boy still at the time himself he was just about just a young man he was a young man but he's an also an exceptional godfather um and very considerate very involved um i've got you know boxes of letters that he would have written he never forgot a birthday or Christmas and I imagine he has quite a herd of godchildren so he's very very considerate I think we can see that as as the king as a king he's an extremely extraordinary man in fact Giles part of the reason I'm in London is because tomorrow night I am chairing the King's Trust 50th anniversary gala which has been a huge undertaking it's been a year in the making.

34:19So I'm sitting here slightly nervous, wondering, because obviously the goal is to really break all records with fundraising, because we've got a lot of work to do. So you're repaying your godfather for the good works that he's done for you over the years. I think I'm repaying in many ways the life that I was born into. I also work a lot for a disaster relief agency called Global Empowerment Mission. And I go to Ukraine every least two or three times a year with them. We go right out to the front lines. There are missiles going off and bombs going and you feel it underneath and, you know, we worry for our lives.

34:57But it is a great privilege that I get to go and that I work for this agency. Two things from this. One is, and you've indicated this, you're partly doing this because you're conscious of the privilege of the kind of life you were born into. So it's partly actually paying back for that. But there also is the Mountbatten energy verve, we like to get things done. So there's a touch of the gung-ho as well as, am I right? I think, you know, one doesn't want to sit here and feel all boring and pious and, you know, I'm so good. I'm not. I'm not. But I enjoy adventure. And I have found that there is a skill set I have, which is asking people for money.

35:40And it's much easier when I can show them where their money is going. So if I find a big American donor and I say we can rebuild a building in Ukraine and I can be on the ground in Ukraine and show them this is the building, these are the people whose lives we're going to be transforming. It's much more powerful than sitting at my desk at home. And you've done that. You've actually done what you've just described. I have a lot. Well done you. A lot, yeah. Just going back before we finish the godfather thing with the king being your godfather, I do remember the Duke of Edinburgh, the king's father telling me showing me in fact a cutting from an american news a german newspaper which said he had um 24 illegitimate children and what it had been it'd been translated as love children he had 24 god children but was translated as love children and then it came out that you had 24 illegitimate children and he said this story in this um this german newspaper has haunted me for years because people are convinced that i've got 24 love children all over the world so it can be frustrating but give me the sweetest your sweetest memory of the king as a godfather something something needed for you that you can share with us every year uh a cardboard box would arrive from the royal um uh the the maker good wasn't it g-o-o-d-e and in it would be a saucer or a gravy dish or a cup.

37:07And as a seven-year-old, and again, talking about press, taking things out of context, I once told this story saying, as a seven-year-old, it was very confusing to have a gravy dish for Christmas. What they didn't continue to print was how extraordinary is a 27-year-old or a 37-year-old to have a complete dining set that's there. What a useful, brilliant present. instead of some plastic toy that you were given at seven that you've no idea where it's gone or how useless it would have been. It was brilliant. And I've always thought, again, the idea of thinking forward, something that would mean something later in life.

37:49And I am a godparent to many godchildren, and I take it as a great privilege as well. And I often think about that. Can I live up to that brilliant thinking ahead of what someone would like later in life? Take us back to you being a little girl. What do you remember of your parents together? What were they like together? Hmm. Probably not often together. My father lived a lot in London. My mother lived a lot in the countryside. My father loved travel. He worked very hard. He loved what he did. Was he playing the field as well in that tradition? No, no. But he liked, he definitely was, he was interested in every aspect of design.

38:28You know, I grew up in these extraordinary dining rooms that had no windows. They were tented dining rooms of pinks and purples and puces. He designed everything around him. He once designed the nose of a client. He said, before we do the house, let's get the nose right. Can you imagine? He designed my mother's extraordinary hair, literally everything around him. He was very dynamic, for sure. But my mother didn't want that life. She led a quiet life, which was horses and riding and dogs and tea. So she stayed in the country. Yeah. And you stayed basically with her. Well, I was in boarding schools.

39:02But you weren't in boarding school until you were seven, eight? Eight, yes. Eight. And before that, you had a nanny? Certainly, but also my mother. Your mother. And was the nanny special? Obviously, to your older brother and sister, very special, but you less so. Very, actually. Interesting you should say that. And I had rather a young, glamorous nanny who I'm still very much in touch with. and oddly oddly when I was asked and again I sort of hesitate to talk about this because I feel now that I've slightly earned my life rather than just accepted or been given it but I was asked to be a bridesmaid to Charles and Diana which was an extraordinary time it really was and there was a moment where I was oh goodness but now I look back and think that was a bit of history and I I should be able to talk about it, although I didn't earn that place.

39:47But all the other younger bridesmaids, we were getting ready in Clarence House. And it was probably quite an intimidating day. And they were young enough to all have a nanny. I didn't. I was at that awkward age of 12. And so my mother had the brilliant idea of actually bringing out of retirement Gail Moseley. And so Gail came with me as a kind of companion and friend, which was such fun. What did you wear? What was the outfit? I mean, I can remember, I can picture Diana's outfit. Yes, we were sort of mini Diana's. So it was done by, was it the Emmanuel's? It certainly was. And it was a time of the 1980s fashion of big and bouffant and a lot of material, which possibly didn't suit my personality.

40:34I was quite a tomboy. So I think that big bouffant dress was a slight surprise to me. and the day was extraordinary I mean did you just take it in your stride? The day was remarkable funnily enough the night before was even more remarkable it was the royal fireworks in Hyde Park there were an enormous crowds on that day and that night of people gathering because they thought that this was you know this this was a fairy tale moment and they came in the royal fireworks in Hyde Park were so well attended that afterwards we realized that London was at a standstill of the traffic and I was never going to get back with my mother to Albany.

41:12And I had to get to Clarence House very early in the morning and it was going to take too long and I was going to be too tired. And suddenly Princess Margaret said to my mother, look, no problem, I'll take India back to Kensington Palace with me. Sarah Armstrong-Jones, her daughter, was also a bridesmaid and was lovely, absolutely wonderful Sarah Armstrong-Jones. So Princess Margaret said, come back to me. My mother in her mind imagined fabulous Inder will be in Kensington Palace in great comfort. It'll be fine. In fact, very sensibly, Princess Margaret wasn't going to waste a guest room on me.

41:41So I was put in a sort of slightly dusty nanny's room. And my vivid memory is a knock on the door. Of course, I had nothing. I came with the clothes that I'd been wearing for the fireworks. A knock on the door. And there was Princess Margaret in her nightie offering me her toothbrush. Isn't that lovely? I don't think I used the toothbrush, but it was a very nice gesture. It's a great story, and I'm glad you didn't use the toothbrush. And the next day you got into these outfits. Well, the next day, of course, because I was Sarah Armstrong-Jones, we had a very easy way to Clarence's house. She probably had a police escort, whereas I probably would have been on a bus.

42:20But the two of you, you were the two senior bridesmaids, were you? Because you were both two older girls. Well, I think Sarah was very much the chief bridesmaid. Her dress was to the ground, mine was to my ankles like the rest. But we were given a job and I liked a job. And our job was to get that train in and out of that extraordinary golden carriage. And it was a very long train, wasn't it? It was indeed. It was the longest in history of any bride. I think Diana very much wanted to make a point. But the interesting thing about it was that obviously there were extraordinary times with those dress rehearsals, which is when I got to know Diana.

42:54Obviously, I had been invited by Charles to be a bridesmaid. She had the girls that she invited. And when we would go to the Emanuel's studio, they had blanked out all of the windows. So we were in darkness, I mean, lit inside, but there was no daylight coming in because the press were camped out on all the rooftops with these big, big lenses to try and get any kind of hint of this secret, this fashion secret that was being created inside the Emanuel's studio. And the silk taffeta was the fabric, was this amazing fabric that they were using. The actual rehearsal in St. Paul's Cathedral, because Diana didn't want to get married in the Abbey, she wanted the cathedral to fit more people in, was that at the rehearsal they tied dust cloth around her waist, which was the length of the train.

43:43So we knew how long it was, we knew what it was going to feel like, and we could visualize it, but no one ever tried it out with the actual silk taffeta. so when diana was put into the glass carriage that she went to the cathedral and with her father who was a large man and you have a large amount of material in a very small cinderella glass carriage by the time you arrive at saint paul's cathedral and sarah and i have the job of taking her out of the carriage and straightening out that train it was a complete crumpled mess oh no Oh, Lord. If you look very carefully at those photographs, you'll see an awful lot of creases on that train because it had been literally squashed into a glass carriage.

44:26And were you trying to sort of pull it out to smooth out the... We were. We were trying. And were the Emanuels there sort of hovering and trying to... They were hovering. Oh, Lord. Most of the photographs that you see of me are of my bottom in the air because I'm bending over trying to sort out this damn train. It's a great memory, though. It's a wonderful memory to have had, isn't it? So it was a glorious day. It was an amazing day, you know, for a 12-year-old child looking back. You know, it was the riding down the mall in a horse-drawn golden carriage. You know, there is no other fairy tale moment that can ever compete with that.

45:00And I look back and think, goodness, that was extraordinary. Of course, fairy tales don't always end up happily, and their marriage didn't end up happily. You were too young, I imagine, to be aware of any of that. But were you distressed? Well, obviously, you were distressed anyway. whereas a person would be distressed at the end of it. But did, were... I didn't, you know, Giles, I really didn't, you know, I was living overseas. I was very removed from all of that. You know, I was just struggling to become a photographer and then I became a model. And so I was travelling. It really wasn't something that I was thinking about.

45:33I want to discover about why you escape. But let's first finish with your childhood. Seven-year-old, eight-year-old, you're sent off to boarding school. All the other girls, that's a nice boarding school. Actually, I went to a few, and then I ended up at Gordonston. Yeah, which, of course, your godfather, the king, did not like. He did not like. Though his sister, Princess Anne, would have liked to go there and send her children there. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. You know, plus et en vous, there is more in you than you know. I thrived at Gordonston. Funnily enough... You weren't one of the first of the girls.

46:06No. My cousin Amanda, actually, a bit older than me, she was one of the first girls. And in fact, we had a family friend who was a governor of Gordonston. And when Amanda went, when the girls were accepted, he resigned out of fury and disgust that girls had been allowed to Gordonston. But, you know, it's on a cliff in the north of Scotland. And in my day, it was quite robust. Cold showers and girls had hairs on their legs. And absolutely, as you can imagine. So school is good and you're happy. Very. And then do you in your head think, what am I going to do? Yes. in fact I remember coming out of school and saying to my mother I've got to get a job and she sort of said really darling I said yes mum I need to get a job my father had a list of dukes in his desk drawer of course that I was going to marry um and every time on the dukes married someone else my father crossly scratched them off the list um but I was I was never going to marry a duke looking back that was not quite a few of them the more than you think about 26 non-royal dukes I think I don't know.

47:07Why could I not have married a royal one? Well, indeed. Yes, there I go. Then let's extend the list. You could have done. Yes, I could have married a royal one. I think you could, but I think maybe you were lucky not to. Yeah. But we won't go there. So that was your father's ambition for you. Certainly. But your ambition for yourself. You know, I don't think that I had ambition then. I certainly do now. and certainly then the word ambitious for a woman was not was not considered attractive but now you know I'm lucky that I get to spend time with amazing women who have worked very hard and have dynamic careers and I just think if only I was do that I would love to have been a producer in Hollywood I would love to have edited a fashion magazine I would love to be a content creator I would there are so many jobs now that I find exciting when you're 18 and emerge from school what happens?

48:02I'm completely at my wits end, I don't know. So I go backpacking for a year with my cousin, and I travel the world, which was a wonderful education, and actually opened my eyes to how other people live. And then when I came back, again, university wasn't necessarily a thing. It wasn't really something that was even really mentioned. I mean, clearly, I wasn't academic in that way. And as I said, I had certainly not dedicated myself, let's put it like that, in school. So I sort of fell into modeling by mistake. And I was never a very good model. But what I loved about it was, again, allowed me to travel.

48:45And what I really loved about it, it allowed me to be financially independent. And that I liked. And looking back, I took great pride in not taking the money from my parents, but earning my own money. And I think that started a feeling of independence. It wasn't necessarily being the financial independence, but living an independent life from where I come from. And now if I look back, you know, I move very quickly out of England. You know, I moved to Boston, then I moved to New York, then I moved to Paris, and then I end up in the Bahamas. So I never really came back to England.

49:28Blue Air Blue Signature Purifiers remove airborne pollutants so you can recover and sleep better. Peak performance isn't just built in the gym, it's built at home. Shop blueair.com, official air care partner of the New York Knicks. Have you ever been stuck on a weight loss plateau, trying everything and anything you can to lose that extra weight and reach peak health? We've all been there, but Noom's unlocked the secret to reaching the mountaintop. going micro. The Noom GLP-1 microdose program starts at$79 and is delivered to your door in seven days. Start your microdose GLP-1 journey today at Noom.com.

50:06That's N-O-O-M.com. Noom. Microchanges. Big results. Initial three-week subscription and four weeks of medication from $79 plus tax and$179 per month plus tax for 12-week subscription thereafter. Final pricing depends on program selection. Noom GLP-1-RX program involves healthy diet, exercise, and support. Individual results may vary. Meds and personalization based on clinical need. Not reviewed by FDA for safety, efficacy, or quality. No affiliation with Novo Nordisk Inc., the only U.S. source of FDA-approved semaglutide. Not available in all 50 U.S. states. Welcome to Get Real, the show for the reality TV obsessed and stands of the Hulu-verse.

50:45Find it wherever you get your podcasts and stream new episodes Thursdays on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.

50:56Before we go to the Bahamas, what age were you at the time of your grandfather's assassination? The IRA, to remind people, murdered Lord Mountbatten and incidentally members of his family and one of the boys who was on the boat in Ireland when he was on holiday. What year was that and how were you 1979 I was 11 and um in fact his funeral we were all there on holiday in Ireland we I heard the bomb and you heard the bomb with your ears I heard the bomb with my ears and with my brother Ashley we were sitting watching Laurel and Hardy I had never heard the word television you were in the house we were in the house watching Laurel and Hardy and from the ocean just down beyond the bottom of the estate was the explosion.

51:41And it was chaos afterwards. And we don't need to get into that because that is a whole different podcast in itself. But what was extraordinary was I'd never heard the words political assassination. I didn't understand what had happened. My grandfather's funeral, which was a state funeral, happened on my 12th birthday, on the 5th September. And interestingly, one of my very clear memories of that was on that royal train that the Queen had organised to take my grandfather's body from London to be buried in Rumsey. My godmother, the Duchess of Kent, came and found me and she had organised a small gold cross with the date on it.

52:26And she was the one person who remembered that it was my birthday. Isn't that amazing? It's a fantastic story. Yeah. Were you distressed or were you too young and bewildered to know to be distressed? Did you see your mother in distress? I didn't see much of my mother actually during that time, which was distressing. That was the most distressing thing because we were so close. The most confusing part, I think, was the day, the night after the bomb. my mother took me from my room and moved me into the bed with her in Classybourne Castle in Ireland and she wanted me to sleep next to her and that was very confusing to me because I was we were frightened all of us we didn't know what was coming next and I think my mother wanted me safe next to her but I didn't know if I was there to comfort her I didn't really understand any of it.

53:20Of course, being very English, I was sent to boarding school, a new boarding school straight after my grandfather's funeral. My mother was coping with an awful lot. My aunt and uncle were intensive care still in Ireland. They didn't attend the funeral. They were grieving for the loss of their identical twin son. There was chaos everywhere. And my mother was coping, just barely coping. So to have me probably sent to boarding school probably felt that it was safe for me in that environment. Of course, for me, it was, you know, it was difficult, but that's what we do in England. You coped. So going back to being grown up, you're modelling, and you end up in the Bahamas for what reason?

54:06Is it a man? It's love, definitely. You know, my father, again, as the sort of way the world works and the stars were aligned, my father built a very unusual house on the neighbouring island where I live now on Eleuthera my mother and aunt bought these plots of land on Windermere Island and they both built houses my aunt and uncle lived in a very normal Caribbean holiday home my father built an Egyptian mausoleum so the one I have been to in Eleuthera when I've stayed there I think would be your aunt and uncle's house correct quite conventional rather like the one where the Duke of Edinburgh used to go quite regularly, which was owned by a family from Northern Ireland, the Abercorns.

54:46That's right. Exactly. We were all together. We were literally the three houses right next to each other. But my now husband was a friend of my sister's and he came out to stay on Eleuthera with George Milford Haven and the whole gang. And he very much fell in love with a way of life and a part of the world. And so a few years later, got a job managing a small boutique hotel on Harbour Island. So describe to me, this is your husband still? This is now my husband. The reason I say my now husband is because for 26 years we were unmarried. But having children? But having, as you would say, those bastards.

55:27But as my mother would say, darling, they're loved children. And as Prince Philip would say, this is very confusing. Mine actually were bastards and love children. At the same time. Yes. Well done them. Well done you. And well done him eventually doing the decent thing. No, no. He did the decent thing right away. When I discovered I was pregnant, he said, let's get married. And I said, no, thank you. I was the one who didn't want to get married. So clearly this deciding to be independent and doing it your way began quite a few years ago. So what age are you when you see him across a crowded room at a party?

55:59Is that how you meet him? I've known him since I was sort of 12, 13 as a friend of my sister's. We had a brief flirtation when I was about 18. Then I spent nine years with a Greek who I love and adore and still love and adore. And he spent many times with a ballerina and other beautiful women. What does he have that the Greek didn't have? David is fascinating. The Greek certainly was not fascinating. The Greek and I were too similar. He was just great fun and an adventurer and mad. David is different in the fact that he's older and so probably has more control over me. And he's fascinating and extremely well read.

56:46And he leans towards the old, quiet, charming world. So I have driven up in a very fast Range Rover. he has driven up to London in a very slow Mercedes convertible from sort of 1960 which risks being broken down on the edge of the motorway but he would prefer that than driving in a very fast modern Range Rover and you've had five children together we have five children four of them I gave birth to and one is adopted oh that's interesting and you got you felt we need more and more how did the adoption go did you have four and then an extra one interestingly wesley our adopted son came last but he's been in my life since he was two he's now 29 he and my elder son felix were best friends in school bahamian wesley and english felix we they've literally been best friends since they were two and then wesley's mother died of breast cancer when he was 11 and so it felt a very natural move that he would join us in our family.

57:51You've lived a very unusual life in that you've lived in two cultures. You've spent a lifetime in the Bahamas and yet when you come back here, well here you are, you're raising wonderful money for your godfather who happens to be the king. Yes, it's interesting. I've probably lived longer in the Bahamas than I have here. And what are you in your head? What is your world? And why do you think you've done this? I don't know. I think, you know, it was, I think, you know, my grandparents and my parents, it was definitely, it was an extraordinary upbringing, but a very imposing one, probably. And I think when I moved certainly to the Bahamas, I found a blank canvas on which I could paint my own story.

58:40and I think that became important to me, not to be the goddaughter of or the daughter of or the granddaughter of. And I think finally I have become my own self. It took a while, definitely. And I think I've made now my own life. What is the best of the old world and the worst of the old world that your family has been so much part of? Goodness. You know, on my mother's list of life lessons, interestingly, she has manners. She has many things on that list. There are sort of 10 very strong points of view that I think I would go by. But manners, she says very quickly and briefly, you know, manners make the world such a nicer, easier place.

59:27When I'm going through security in an airport, I'm often thinking, India, keep your manners because I can't bear the way they treat you and they're so rude and they don't look you in the eye and they don't ask you in a nice way. But I think certain powers in the world at the moment in leadership have lost their sense of manners. And I think maybe if we were all a little more patient and kind and remembered our manners, it would be a much better place for us to be working from. And would you say also, you mentioned right at the beginning, duty and service? advantages of the old school, the old world.

1:00:14Yes, but I also like living in a modern world. I'm very appreciative of the world I live in. I love this time that we're in. And it is challenging and it is off balance. But my goodness, there are opportunities in it, particularly as a woman. And I hope I'm raising an independent, confident, uncomplicated daughter. She has four older the brothers, God forbid, the poor child. But I think she is an uncomplicated girl in a very complicated world. And I do think that there are amazing opportunities for us. And I, as I've said, I'm going to be 59 this year. I'm more excited than ever for what is to come for me.

1:00:51What was the worst of the old world that we may be pleased to say goodbye to? You know, people have different old worlds. And mine was this world of establishment and expectations that I think were very limited, too limited. Expectations for me were very limited. And now I think, you know, my daughter literally has the world at her feet. She can be anyone she wants to be. And I regret that I wasn't able to have that. Can you remember your most intimate conversation with your father? No. Didn't happen. Never happened? Absolutely not. Even towards the end of his life? you know he tried by the end he did he was very sick and he managed to persuade a very rich client to give him a jet which couldn't even land at north luthera which is our airport had to come into governor's harbor only my father would arrive by a jet that was so big he couldn't actually come so he had to travel up the island a lot of additional cost and complication because he wanted to arrive by the jet and he came across on the boat and he came and had one lunch with me on my home, stayed only for lunch.

1:02:00Harbour Island is a complicated place to get to. And if you are dying, which you probably know you are, it's an interesting idea to come only for lunch. Interesting, in fact, that I never cook. I don't cook. It's not a skill set I have. I can change the wheel on a car very easily, but I don't go in a kitchen. But I cooked that day. I made him a quiche because obviously I wanted still to impress him in some pathetic way. And he made the effort to come and see me. And I remember taking him back down to the dock and we got off the golf cart because that's the usual form of transport on the island.

1:02:35And he got off and he was coughing blood onto the dock and he got on the boat and he left. And my brother rang me about three days later and he said, I think you should come back to England. I think it's goodbye. And of course, my father being my father, I got on the plane. I went back to England and my brother said, you should talk to him. And I went into the library and he was sitting there and I just thought, nope, nope, I can't do this. And I left the library again. I got on the plane. I mean, we'd had a perfectly nice couple of days. I got on the plane, went back to the Bahamas. And as I landed, he bloody well went and died.

1:03:09I had to get back on the plane and go back to England. Is there anything that you're ashamed of in your life? I lost a business. I worked very hard for six years and I grew a business that could either be a big small business or it's a small big business where I had 5 ,000 ambassadors and we grew to a$30 million company. That's quite big. It was big. Well done. And I worked extremely hard at it and it was a direct sales business. And so we had these networks of women who would sell beautiful lifestyle collections that I designed with a team. And I so believed in this business and I believed in the women, they believed in me.

1:03:46And we had this extraordinary, these years of empowering one another. And then as many startups fail, we failed. And we had to close the business. And I felt that I had let them down. And I felt personally responsible that these 5000 women had come on this journey with me and believed in me because it was my name. And that was very humbling. And I think I regretted a lot of what we had done along the way. now looking back with a business mind. At the time, I was very naive and didn't really understand completely how to run a business, clearly. Even though I had two German CEOs, male CEOs standing beside me who really ran the finances and the actual business of it, I was there for the energy and the direction and the belief in the business.

1:04:34But that was, I regret very much that I didn't succeed, mainly for them. The way you said, energy, direction, belief. these are what you get from the Mountbatten Hicks gene. And you've been blessed in that, haven't you? Don't you think? Am I right or am I wrong? I certainly have been blessed with energy. My poor husband, if he wakes up and he finds me with a red bull in my hand, he just thinks, oh God, here we go. Zest. We love zest. I have a lot of energy. It's fantastic. Okay, we're getting to the end now. I'm going to ask you just three more questions. A moment of joy from your life. Just pick a moment of joy, particularly from your earlier days.

1:05:12A moment of joy. comes instantly into your head? Nothing necessarily beats my life now and five children at home for Christmas on the island. That for me is joy. And what do you have for Christmas? We have a very traditional English Christmas on a tropical island. Sometimes we can even light the fire in our fireplace and we feel really as though we're in England. But it's always a time of great tradition and joy and I always have my five children despite the squabbling despite all of the chaos that comes I'm doing a new entertaining book that comes out with Rizzoli in September and it's called Entertaining with a Side of Chaos and that is my life and a moment of sadness from your life the one that comes into your head really you know predominantly and probably because it was most poignant was my grandfather's murder um certainly uh i think that that that definitely is there okay it has to be doesn't it in a way because it was bigger i mean i was really thinking of something more intimate and personal do you have animals pets i was going to mention the death of a ducks and banger who had three legs and was very remarkable but i felt that it It sounded a little too English to go for the death of the ducks and over the murder of my grandfather.

1:06:39And yet it's there, isn't it? Well, I think probably parallel. And we can say that with a smile on our faces. But yes, the death banger was traumatizing for all of my children because he had been there right from the beginning. Yeah. And you told us about your mother's life lessons. What, India, is your life lesson? What have you learned through the life you've led so far? Well, I think the two things, and they're both borrowed, and I've mentioned the first, which is the Gordonston motto, which is there is more in you than you know. Say it again. Is it Latin? Plus est en vous. Oh, plus est en vous.

1:07:14There's more in you than you realise. Yes. I think that's a very good one. In fact, I have it engraved on a bracelet. My mother, who has seen tragedy and has dealt with a lot, and now at the age of 97 says goodbye to a lot of friends. Every day opens the newspaper to see who else has died, obviously. she says you keep facing forward and she says the great Walt Whitman saying of face the sun and the shadows will fall behind you. India Hicks thank you very much. Now I get to eat my shortbread. You get to eat your shortbread. Thank you. Well done you.

1:07:49Well my thanks there to India Hicks. Actually we've had some remarkable people with royal stories of different kinds on Rosebud. I'm particularly thinking, this week we've had Alistair Bruce, today India Hicks. Do please, if you've never listened to it before, go back into the archive and listen to Terry Pendry who was the late Queen's groom. That's a fascinating episode. Anyway, we've got a hundred and more episodes, maybe nearly 200, that you can dip into. And so please do. And please get in touch if you'd like to. People do from around the world. I'm always excited by the range of countries that people write to us from.

1:08:27And if you do write to us, it's quite simply hello at rosebudpodcast.com. And somebody who has written from, oh, from Ukraine. That's the reason Harriet has chosen this letter, because of course, India Hicks has taken a special interest in Ukraine and has been doing important work there. This is from Dmitry Rogitsky. He writes, hello, Charles and Harriet. Recently, I've heard that you are starting to collect letters from different places. So here is my take. Maybe not the most exciting or picturesque place in the world, but I assume it would still be rather unexpected to receive a letter from here.

1:09:02So here I am, your grateful listener from Ukraine. To be more precise, from Odessa City. Yes, you're not mistaken. Liverpool's sister city since 1975. So close and at the same time so far in a huge array of physical and philosophical stages and forms. Happy to report we are still okay. Kind of okay. Okay-ish, if you will. Never did I even think that the word war would become so much a part of my life. Not just closed, but woven into it. But I do believe this daft, horrendous political gamble will soon come to an end. Sporadically, it's too hard to believe, but I do with all my heart. So much has been taken and stolen from our lives.

1:09:49With years, everything starts to become more expensive, especially time. Oh my, this is quite a letter from Dimitri. Thank you for writing. But anyway, I'm not kvetching by any means because life is wonderful. Where there's a will, there's a way. I hope I find mine and it will definitely be a better one. Sorry for such a long prelude. Let's leave that dark side of reality for another conversation. Today, I'm here to say hello and thank you for being kind enough to let me into your lives. I won't say that I've crossed oceans of time to find you. It would be too much. But many years ago, I bumped into your podcast.

1:10:33Such a wonderful place of wisdom and knowledge. Zesty truth of love with a light hint of mild gibberish. It's proof of how lucky I was, how lucky I am, and God willing, how lucky I'll continue to be. Fingers crossed. With great respect, Dmitry Ruzitsky. P.S. One more thing I almost forgot. As the proverb suggests, teamwork makes the dream work. My special thanks to Harriet. well I have to say Dmitry that is a profoundly moving email to receive that we are being listened to in Ukraine is fantastic that our listener should be Dmitry whose way with words in English which I take to be his second language if not his third is extraordinary and that he can write with such feeling and humor is extraordinary so I'm very glad that you've written.

1:11:34Thank you for taking the trouble to write. And if there are other people in Ukraine who are listening to us, do let us know. And you're right. Teamwork does make the dream work. So I'm equally thankful to Harriet. We are a team and we support each other. But I have to say here at Rosebud, we also belong to Team Ukraine. We wish you the very, very best, Dmitry, and all your fellow country folk. So my thanks there to Dmitry and everyone else who writes for us do please keep writing. Harriet does check all the emails and obviously we read them out when we can. Keep in touch. Join the Rosebud Club.

1:12:13Join the Rosebud family if you fancy it. You then get an extra episode on Sundays and add free listening. To do that you just go to www.patreon.com forward slash rosebud. We're here every Tuesday, every Friday for you with more Rosebud and Rosebud. And we've got some really rather special things coming up. I think we may be in diary country on Tuesday, but next Friday it's May Day. Who in the world would be the ideal May Day guest? I think we've found them. Anyway, that's our Royal Week done and dusted. Thank you for being part of the Rosebud team. Until next time, goodbye. Cue the music.

1:13:04Thank you.

1:13:42Rosebud is a Plain Jane production produced by Harriet Jane, hosted by me, Giles Brandreth, with music by Phil Leppard, and recorded this week at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House in London's Park Lane. Room service.

1:13:59Welcome to Get Real, the show for the reality TV obsessed and stands, of the Huluverse. Find it wherever you get your podcasts and stream new episodes Thursdays on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.