Lifetime of connections with Royal Family - heartfelt tribute to mother is described in talk at Banburyshire stately home

India Hicks, renowned humanitarian, fashion designer and author, took her audience through the poignant memoir she has written about her mother, Lady Pamela Hicks – daughter of Lord Mountbatten and childhood friend and lady-in-waiting to Princess Elizabeth – later Queen Elizabeth II.

The book, Lady Pamela: My Mother’s Extraordinary Life, is a captivating recollection of moments in the life of Pamela Mountbatten, later Hicks, now 95 and who was there in the conservatory at Aynho – a house she spent much time at during her childhood.

"She grew up in the shadow of her parents (Lord ‘Dickie’ Mountbatten and his wife Edwina) and in the shadow of the Royal Family,” said India. “She is Queen Victoria’s great granddaughter, it is extraordinary that she has lived through three Coronations.

"She shared a birthday party in Malta with Princess Elizabeth to celebrate her 21st and the princess’s 25th birthdays and was her companion on the Commonwealth Tour, when no one knew how sick the King (George VI) was… She went up to Treetops (on safari in Kenya) a Princess and came down a Queen.”

India Hicks’ biography of her mother tells of her childhood, frequently being left in the care of a nanny or governess while her mother travelled abroad and her evacuation to the USA, away from the bombing of England, where she and her sister were left in the care of the hugely wealthy Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt.

Wracked with homesickness she was eventually allowed home in spite of the danger of Hitler’s bombs.

As a young adult Pamela Mountbatten became lady in waiting to the Queen. She took a central role in the Coronation and was a right hand to the Queen for years, until an unconventional marriage to the designer David Hicks allowed her a quieter life, though she describes her husband as ‘permanently like a volcano’.

This illustrated biography, packed with extraordinary content retrieved from Lady Pamela’s carefully preserved collection of diaries, recorded from the age of four, covers the tragic assassination of her father by the IRA while on holiday in the family’s castle in Ireland and throughout, demonstrates 95 years of remarkable change.

Lady Pamela’s lessons in life are of ‘duty and service’. Her daughter said her mother’s life demonstrates consistent loyalty, endurance and resilience.

"Her philosophy is that we must move forwards, not backwards whatever happens in life; that we should be aware but not self-occupied. She believes we should respect all religions – that religion is a tree with many branches. We need to look at things from others’ perspectives. And she believes a sense of humour is essential.

"One of her favourite quotes is Walt Whitman’s ‘Keep your face always toward the sunshine ~ and shadows will fall behind you’.”

Lady Pamela ended the presentation by answering a question from the audience about her regrets. “There is no time for regrets,” she said.

India Hicks’ book, Lady Pamela: My Mother’s Extraordinary Life, is available in hardback at Foyles, Amazon UK, Waterstones and Hatchards.