King Charles' goddaughter India Hicks's Oxfordshire farm she designed herself - full tour
Her parents Lady Pamela and David Hicks christened her India in honour of the country where her grandfather, Lord Louis Mountbatten, had served as Britain’s last viceroy. And at the ceremony was his adoring great-nephew, the Prince of Wales – now the King – who is her godfather, which is how, at just 13, India came to play a starring role as one of Lady Diana Spencer's bridesmaids in the royal wedding of the century.
Her looks and poise captivated the cameras and have done so ever since. India made a name for herself as a model, before taking inspiration from her father, a renowned interior designer, to forge a new career.
She’s also found success as a businesswoman and author, while bringing up five children with her husband, former advertising executive David Flint Wood, on an idyllic island in the Bahamas.
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So when HELLO! meets India, 56, at their neo-Georgian house in Oxfordshire just a stone’s throw from where she grew up, there's plenty to talk about. Posing in our exclusive photoshoot with David and their youngest child, Domino Carmen, 16, India muses on what family means to her.
But along with her pride in 16-year-old Domino and her big brothers – Felix, 26, Amory, 24, Conrad, 21, and Wesley, 27 – what she is most eager to discuss is her passion for philanthropy.
As a board member at the charity Global Empowerment Mission, India is dedicated to helping provide humanitarian relief in disaster situations, whether natural, such as hurricanes, or man-made, like war.
When conflict broke out in Ukraine, she didn’t hesitate, heading there straight away to help spearhead the response, and she has been returning to the country ever since. She talks to us about her passion for helping others – and about her homes in the UK and the Caribbean.
India, how did you create your beautiful home in England?
"I was very lucky to inherit a slice of land two fields away from my mother's home. With five children of my own, we had outgrown her house, and it seemed a lovely opportunity to build our own. We wanted something befitting to the countryside around us and so we built a simple Georgian farmstead.
"We actually built the main room around the measurements of two enormous gilt mirrors. We were also told by the very strict council that we could not begin building until the bats, birds and the bees had finished nesting, which we very much respected. Bats, birds and bees first!"
"It was a lurching journey to bring America Farm to life, but we both felt that the past is always the place to start for inspiration. Its textures, tastes and visions bring back that which is not always fresh in the mind, but always familiar to the heart. From the first night that the seven of us stayed in the house, it felt very much like a home."
How would you describe the decor?
"David and I share much the same aesthetic, which is lucky as neither of us is very good at compromising! He had been buying bits of furniture at auction and I had been given some by my mother. Thankfully it all slipped together seamlessly.
"We are both complete slaves to symmetry in architecture. Most of the windows and doors here are carefully aligned to create vistas that expand space, and living in the tropics has also taught us that breezes passing through opposing windows and doors could come in handy during the now quite extended English summers.
"As for the palette, even though I grew up with my father’s vibrant colour schemes, David and I have tended to go with fairly neutral backgrounds and one keynote colour, such as the orange ultra-suede on our Louis XVI-style chairs."
Did you design some of the furnishings yourself?
"We had a carpenter craft our four-poster bed, which we covered in a quiet Chinese toile. And I’m very proud that the sheets are designed by me and produced by a very British company called Heirlooms who hold two royal warrants."
As well as your mother living nearby, your daughter is at school in the UK. Do you visit often?
"I do. I am lucky to feel quite at home both in the Bahamas and here. As the years roll by, I understand that our island life and decorating sensibilities are a strong combination of our traditional British past and our richly flavoured Caribbean present, all mixed up with our own eccentricities."
What does your connection with the King mean to you?
"I have the great privilege of being the goddaughter to an exceptional man; quite apart from being King he is an absolute gentleman, a leader in the philanthropic world who was thinking in a green and sustainable way before any of us realised the importance of this.
"He kindly wrote the foreword to my book Island Style, in which he reminds us all about the harmony that needs to exist between the natural environment and the people who inhabit it.”
What memories do you have of his and Diana's wedding day?
"Looking back, it seems like a fairytale to have ridden from St Paul’s Cathedral to Buckingham Palace in a horse-drawn golden coach."
My mother, who was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II, had spent much of her life waving to crowds, and gave me firm instructions. 'You must wave,’ she warned me. 'People don’t want to see you riding past without waving. I did my best, with my timid little hand.”
Tragically, in summer 1979 your grandfather Lord Mountbatten was killed in an IRA bomb attack in Ireland. How do you remember that awful day?
"My grandfather was the backbone of our family. We spent every Christmas holiday together in his home in Hampshire, Easter in the Bahamas, and summers in Ireland. The assassination in 1979 felt like the end of my childhood."
Your mother and your father were both well-known figures. What do you feel you've inherited from them?
"My father had an extraordinary career. He had a fearless relationship with colour, is renowned for his ground-breaking use of geometric patterns, and was mixing old with new before anyone else did."
"My own design aesthetic is more tempered and less bold, but I recognise that much of my passion for life, my energy and my sense of adventure come from my father."
My mother’s life was one of unwavering duty, loyalty and service inspired by her parents and further amplified by her years with the Queen. I hope I’ve also inherited some of that."
Why did you decide to settle on Harbour Island in the Bahamas?
"My mother and aunt had bought neighbouring plots of land on Windermere Island, so I grew up going to this part of the world. When I fell in love with David, he was managing a small boutique hotel there and somehow the stars were aligned for us both to fall in love with, not only each other, but also the Bahamas."
After a lifetime and five children together, three years ago you got married. Why then?
"After the bewildering pandemic, I felt a longing for something reassuring, anchoring not only for me but for my kids. David had asked me to marry him 25 years earlier when I discovered I was pregnant with Felix, but being in my fiercely independent woman phase I never accepted, although I felt strongly that our children should carry his last name except, of course, for Wesley, who we adopted in the Bahamas and who arrived in our lives already named."
How was the wedding?
"Having lived an unconventional life together, we decided that our wedding should in contrast be very conventional. We chose the church at Brightwell Baldwin here in Oxfordshire, where I was christened and where my father is buried. I could feel love all around us on that day.
"I may have taken my time in getting married but it feels very special now that I am."
What can you tell us about David?
"He was a friend of my sister, so I’ve known him since I was about 11. Perhaps because of that it felt very comfortable falling in love with each other. David has a brilliant and fascinating mind. Like my mother he is an avid reader and every day I learn something new from him."
What projects does he have going on at the moment?
David has developed a luxury rum, Idle Assembly. Telling a Caribbean story, it’s sold in a beautiful bottle with a label designed by our eldest, Felix. "You’re a mother, daughter, wife, businesswoman and humanitarian. How do you balance it all?
"I think women still struggle enormously to find the right balance in life between the many roles we’re destined to take on."
"Being the granddaughter of an admiral who was also Chief of Combined Operations during the war, I have not only his energy but also organisational skills. I think that helps!"
Why have you chosen to work with Global Empowerment Mission?
"They stand out because, despite being a disaster relief agency, they understand the need goes far deeper than immediate assistance.
I respect enormously their philosophy of empowering local teams on the ground and of course their aim to always deliver the most aid to the most people in need in the shortest amount of time with the least cost to the donors.
"GEM touched down two days after Russia invaded Ukraine. I followed three weeks later and return every few months, in the hope that I can continue to bring awareness to the ongoing crisis."
Which values have you tried to pass on to your children?
"That we must never take our life for granted and must hope to do our part to leave this world a little better than we found it."
Do you have any dreams left to fulfill?
"Yes, and that's what makes each new chapter of life so exciting: chasing dreams, even when you get knocked down. My mother always reminds me of Walt Whitman’s words: 'Keep your face always toward the sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you.'"
HELLO! has made a donation to Global Empowerment Mission for this interview.
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