james_herriots_yorkshire.jpgI
have always enjoyed James Herriot's (James Alfred Wight) Yorkshire vet series
of books and the original 1978-1980 television series. It was his compassion
for the animals and love of Yorkshire that really came through in the writing
along with a healthy dose of humour and good nature. Seeing the countryside in
the television series really added to the appreciation of his stories. In this
coffee-table book Herriot guides us through the various areas of Yorkshire that
featured so prominently in his live accompanied by photographs by Derry Brabbs
bringing together the stories and images of the landscape that surrounded them.
Sure, now a bit obviously dated with the photographs but the sentiments are
very real and the book does give us an idea of the region.
Though much
of book is filled with fond memories there are also bittersweet ones too as the
images of Yorkshire spark Herriot's memories. It is as if we are listening the
great author informally chatting to us as we look over the wonderful pictures.
There are references to slightly less known areas such as the Buttertubs,
Coverdale and his home in Thirsk (now featuring a museum to the famous man) as
well as the more familiar such as York and Harrogate. For all he has something
to say, providing insights to not only the countryside but also the writing of
his books and his real life as a vet.
Great for
fans of the famous Yorkshire vet as well as those who love Yorkshire. Easy to
read with some beautiful, if not spectacular, photos.
Recently,
we’ve been watching “The Yorkshire Vet” on Acorn TV. Skeldale Veterinary Centre
is a fine successor to that run by Alf Wight (known by the pen James Herriot).
The new
show’s vets are Julian Norton and his partner Peter Wright, who trained under Wight.
In a respectful choice of casting, the new show’s narrator is actor Christopher
Timothy who played Herriot in the series, “All Creatures Great and Small.” This
new practice is more of a documentary than Herriot’s, which can cause a few
winces in the watching.
Herriot’s
dog stories and other books about life in the Yorkshire Dales have sold in the
millions. Starting in 1978, through 1990, 90 episodes of “All Creatures Great
and Small” became a Sunday night television staple in our house.
In 2007 we exercised
our love for the show to the max and booked a holiday week in Askrigg, a
Yorkshire village in the heart of Herriot country. Our two-bed apartment was at
the rear of The King’s Arms public house. It was called The Drovers in the “All
Creatures” scripts and we found a welcome there. Its wall featured photos of
Christopher Timothy, Robert Hardy and Peter Davison enjoying a pint of
Yorkshire bitter, which isn’t how it tastes.
Across High
Street was Skeldale House, the TV home for veterinarians Siegfried Farnon
(Hardy), his trainee brother, Tristan (Davison), and our hero Herriot
(Timothy).
In the
opening scenes, Herriot arrives in Yorkshire fresh from college in Glasgow. He
was to be apprentice vet to Farnon, a demanding boss with the softest of
hearts. His calling-card saying was “You must attend!” reminding me of my Irish
father who famously wanted everything done yesterday. As a country vet,
Farnon’s guiding rule was that when the phone rang he responded. Soon his
apprentice, James, shared that load.
I, Maureen,
son Matt and his wife Karen walked in the footsteps of that famous vet and his
television family of true-to-life professionals and country folk. We had lived
inside so many “All Creatures” shows that we felt a kinship with the actors,
their realistic characters, and the unchanging sheep-filled Dales.
Herriot
wrote truth about his fellow workers, his love life, animals encountered, and
how tight-fisted farmers tested his patience. His first novels were “If Only
They Could Talk,” and “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet.” The book’s stories were
slice-of-life tales that transferred easily to the small screen.
Nonetheless,
Hardy had doubts about the show’s appeal. He worried that it would “bore the
townspeople and irritate the country folk.” Hardy’s analysis turned out to be
spectacularly wrong, but his opinion made sense. Early on in his career, Hardy
performed in Shakespeare’s “Henry V” at Stratford-upon-Avon.
Hardy’s
varied acting life spanned 70 years. Yet, his winning role of an irascible
television vet became his legacy.
It became
easier and easier to care about each character in “All Creatures Great and
Small.” Young James Herriot learned how to navigate Yorkshire farmers and their
singular personalities.
One, Mr.
Biggins, would corral James in the pub and try to get free vet advice rather
than pay for an official visit. In one scene he had the whole pub smiling at
his demonstration of an odd hitch in a cow’s back leg. The camera took
lingering views of the farmer’s rear end, as a smiling James asked for repeat
performances.
James drove
up and down the hilly stonewalled roads that we tackled 10 years ago. The
actors drove a succession of cranky vintage vehicles in order to match the
1930s and onward settings. In lambing season the vets might find themselves in
a cold shed as spring snows quieted the scene around them.
In Acorn’s
modern version, Peter Wright says of a new lamb nestling up to its mother,
“After 35 years I still think that what’s life is all about.”
During the
show’s run James Herriot had two actress wives. Carol Drinkwater was unaware
that her part as Helen, a farmer’s daughter and James’s girlfriend, had turned
her into a sex symbol until she was mobbed wherever she appeared. Before James
got around to asking for her hand, Siegfried told him not to wait. Helen, he
observed, nearly stopped traffic just by walking in the town.
James had
rich competition from an upscale young man who drove a beautiful car and chased
Helen about. The broad humor of difficult courtships found James a bit worse
for drink at a dance as her boyfriend looked down his nose at a floored James
while Helen laughed. In vino veritas, so they say, but all came well.
Their
unique honeymoon saw James testing cows across the Dales even as he was showing
off his new spouse to kind farmers’ wives. Helen was one of them.
The show
was once critiqued as a “cup of cocoa drama,” meaning it’s the perfect nightcap
leading to a good night’s sleep. Compared to far too much of today’s television
entertainment, watching “All Creatures” I never had occasion to moan or throw
objects at the TV screen because of language “that would make a sailor blush”
to quote Professor Higgins in “My Fair Lady.”
Robert
Hardy passed away last month at age 92. Like most of us he played many roles in
life. Siegfried Farnon, was just one. In six films he was Winston Churchill!
Yet, in his
obituary his canny, often grouchy vet was held out to be his legacy. The good
news is that “All Creatures” lives on in colorful bucolic videos borrowed from
a local library, seen on YouTube or purchased from a bookstore.
In these
harrowing times, being vetted as “a cup of cocoa” is praise indeed. May Robert
Hardy rest in peace and may a godlike Siegfried Farnon continue caring for
animals — like and unlike us — for eternity. Amen.
Jim
Cahillane, who writes a monthly column, lives in Williamsburg with creatures
wild and domestic, including Liddy, a fairly odd cat.
THE "NEW" ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL // CHANNEL 5
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– 30 Sept. 2024
English editionby India Hicks (auteur)
India Hicks’s affectionate tribute to her beloved
mother, Lady Pamela Hicks, and her extraordinary life surrounded by dazzling
people, places, houses, and history.
For years designer India Hicks has been sharing
anecdotes about the life of her mother, Lady Pamela Hicks, or Lady P, as she is
affectionately known.
This new visual biography is an extraordinary
chronicle of Lady Pamela’s life. Daughter of the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma,
the last viceroy of India, Lady Pamela was a first cousin to Prince Philip,
Duke of Edinburgh, and served as a bridesmaid and lady-in-waiting to Queen
Elizabeth II, before marrying legendary interior designer David Hicks. Sifting
through her parents’ archives, India has uncovered a trove of material about
her mother. This beautifully illustrated personal history includes ephemera such
as letters from the Queen; images of the houses and gardens where she grew up
and made her wonderfully elegant home; details of her extraordinary work during
Indian independence, her marriage to David Hicks and the homes he designed for
them, the assassination of her father in Ireland, and later life in the
country, as well as the lessons India has learned from her mother having had a
front-row seat at so many historical events.
An exemplary life, captured in beautiful images―for
lovers of history, royal watchers, and all style enthusiasts.
In Lady
Pamela, India Hicks Tells the Remarkable Story of Her Mother
Lady Pamela
Hicks was in the shadow of Queen Elizabeth her whole life. Now, her daughter is
bringing her into the spotlight.
Lady Pamela Hicks has served as witness to key moments in
British royal history. The daughter of Lord Mountbatten and a first cousin of
Prince Philip, Lady Pamela was a bridesmaid at Queen Elizabeth's royal wedding,
a lady-in-waiting for the Queen, and joined her on many overseas tours of the
Commonwealth.
Now, her daughter, India Hicks is telling her full story in
a brand-new illustrated biography: 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 (out today). "People perhaps see a very privileged life, which
indeed it was," she tells T&C about her mother's life. "But there
was a lot of extraordinary moments of darkness in there. We should not ever
judge before we have a little further look into the lives of people."
Ahead of the publication of Lady Pamela, Hicks spoke with T&C about her
mother's remarkable life and her thoughts on the royals in 2024.
What inspired you to work on Lady Pamela?
When I began to have my own life and my own children and I
became a mother myself, I saw her differently; I suddenly realized how
extraordinary she was—not just as a mother, but as a person. What I recognized
was she had always been in the shadows. She was in the shadow of very great
parents who were very famous and did a lot of good and did many extraordinary
things and also much criticized, but they were always in the limelight. She was
in the shadow of her older sister, who was a remarkable woman, very hardworking,
became a judge. She was very much in the shadow of my father, David Hicks, who
was a whirling dervish of design and ideas and a passion for life. And she was,
of course, in the shadow of the Queen—as she should have been, as a lady in
waiting. And I just realized that actually her story now, particularly that
she's 95, the combination of all of that is very remarkable.
One thing that struck me was that your mother admits she
wasn’t “immediately enamored” with being a lady-in-waiting, but she had no
choice. Can you tell me more about this?
Her time in India had been very dramatic. Going out to
India, when my grandfather [Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma]
was there as the Viceroy, she was 17 years old and had no understanding of what
she was going to—it was a country on the verge of civil war and she watched the
birth of two nations through these very young, immature eyes. That also is an
extraordinary thing: a front row seat at Indian independence. She sat with
Gandhi at prayer meetings, and I always think, 'how many people alive today
have actually sat beside Gandhi at a prayer meeting?'
When she comes back to England, her set of friends have all
been coming out balls and getting married to Dukes of large estates—it was a
world that my mother, by then, didn't feel particularly comfortable in.
Suddenly, she's asked [to travel] around the world, and it is work. You are on
duty a lot of the time. You are two steps behind in the shadow. She says it was
a real privilege, but I think she was looking for a little bit of peace and
quiet.
Your mother was lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth for many
years, and joined her on two Commonwealth Tours, which you write extensively
about. What is something most people don’t know about what goes on behind the
scenes of a royal tour?
People underestimate how much work it is for the member of
the royal family, for the Queen and Prince Philip to do seven months on tour,
and day in and day out to be scrutinized in every possible way. And, to shake
the hand of everyone—my mother said that that was very important; the actual
human touch made a huge difference. You go to all these countries that are part
of the Commonwealth and know the Queen as a face on a stamp. To actually touch
and to realize that she's human again, my mother said was extraordinary for
people and the crowds. The love for her was incredible. For the Queen, it came
very naturally to her; she was the ultimate diplomat. She knew exactly what to
say to whom. Prince Philip was a little bit more of a loose canon, but as a
result, people adored him when they met him, because he said exactly what he
thought and what he felt. What my mother always says is the combination of the
two of them is what was so brilliant and so powerful and so strong.
One of the most moving chapters in Lady Pamela is when you
write about your grandfather Lord Mountbatten. What are your recollections of
that day he was killed? What was it like for you to watch those events
recreated on The Crown?
I didn't watch that episode of The Crown. Of course, I have
very vivid memories. They're childish in many respects, and now I look back and
see it very much through my mother's eyes. That was my first experience of
witnessing the world's press. It was very alarming for me as a young girl. My
mother was used to that, but she was just navigating on so many fronts.
"Up until that point we had enjoyed many blissful
holidays in beloved Ireland. My father had fun designing feathered hats, kilts,
and tartan jackets, apparently not for the oldest or youngest members of the
family."
She was really the only adult on the ground. Her beloved
sister was on life support. My uncle, who she's incredibly close with, was very
near to death, her father had been murdered in the water immediately. One of
the twins was in the hospital, the other twin also had died. The lad who helped
us every summer on the boat had also been killed. We were all there; we all
heard the bomb; we all suffered the trauma. But I often think that for my
mother, particularly, it must have been really, really difficult. Of course,
because she is of a certain generation and a certain upbringing—being very
English—she never showed any of it ever. There's this extraordinary, I think,
inspiring story about resilience and about how we should all perhaps pay little
attention to that older generation who have lived through war and do very, very
strong.
What Lord Mountbatten's Real Funeral Was Like
There is much criticism around my grandparents, but they
certainly instilled in my mother and the wider family the sense of duty and
service. And so whatever one can say or people want to rewrite history to suit
them, that was definitely this idea that you were there to serve others. My
mother absolutely has felt that. So she felt it was her duty to go on the
Commonwealth tour. She felt it was her duty to take on all these charitable
causes and be the patron of all these foundations later in life.
Lady Pamela ends with three funerals: of your grandfather,
father, and then Queen Elizabeth. You also write you learn you heard of Queen
Elizabeth’s passing that she had a stroke– this was news to me, I’m just
curious to learn more.
When I called my mother, I was getting on an airplane and
the news [about Queen Elizabeth's health] came through. Someone I was traveling
with had had some inside information, so called my mother to say, 'This is
what's happening and the Queen has had a stroke.' I said, 'Should I come back?'
And she said, 'Darling, the poor Queen's had the stroke, not me. You must go on
with what you are doing.' Just no fuss. When I came back from where I had been
for the weekend, the Queen subsequently had died. When I arrived back to the
house, my mother was dressed in black, and she remained dressed in black for a
period of mourning. And I don't know what the official court mourning is, and
she remained dressed in black, even though she lives quite alone in the
countryside.
Your mother was obviously at Queen Elizabeth's coronation,
but what was it like for you to watch King Charles's coronation last year?
There was a lot of conversation around my mother and others
who were not included in that ceremony in the Abbey. My mother says that was
the right thing to do. Why would you fill those seats when with the old family
members, when you could fill them with people who have done incredible worthy
good causes more recently, who would gain so much more from that? It never
occurred to her that she should have had a seat there at that coronation. In
fact, she said she saw so more from sitting with her feet up and a cup of tea
watching it fascinated on television.
As King Charles's goddaughter, how does it feel be an
extended member of the royal family in 2024? How does it impact your life?
I felt great pride and great privilege of having had
experiences of standing on that incredible balcony at Palace. But the
cleverness and the correctness of the royal family slimming down to just very
small working group is very important and very sensible. So I am certainly not
a member of the royal family now, but I do feel great privilege of having been
a part of some of those more historical moments.
It's been quite a tumultuous year for them. And I'm not sure
if you have any updates on how King Charles is doing in terms of his health or
any insight you can provide there.
With the rest of the world, we watch with such sadness that
he finally gets into the role of a King—and [he gets sick]. He is a very
different sovereign to his mother. We had this very exceptional Queen who was
our rock and our guiding light, but my god, has Charles proved himself. This
man—who's dedicated himself to service of love and has worked so hard all of
his life—to then find yourself ill, it must be just exhausting. Exhausting
because you've got so much you want to do and so many places you need to be in
so many things you have to attend. And his workload is crippling. And he's not
someone who says no. He works very, very hard, is very, very diligent in
everything he does. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for him.
As one of her bridesmaids, what do you make of Princess
Diana's continued influence on fashion and pop culture?
Clearly, she was a remarkable and very unique person in the
fact that she was very brave in the way she tackled a very complicated role, as
Princess of Wales, of then being a single mom. She was very remarkable in the
way she was fearless with the way she would reach out and touch people. She was
fearless in the way she walked amongst in live war zones. So she was
extraordinary. It's slightly disappointing that people focus on the fashion.
It just comes back to people misunderstanding quite how hard
the royal families do work. They do need modernizing for sure, times change,
and we are moving forward. But I think that the fantastic four of Charles,
Camilla, and William, and Kate, when she recovers, is a very powerful thing.
Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town
& Country, where she covers entertainment, celebrities, the royals, and a
wide range of other topics. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing
editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and
Instagram.
Lady Pamela Carmen Louise Hicks (née Mountbatten; born 19
April 1929) is a British aristocrat. She is the younger daughter of the 1st
Earl Mountbatten of Burma by his wife, Edwina Mountbatten. Through her father,
Lady Pamela is a first cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and a great
niece of the last Empress of Russia, Alexandra Feodorovna. She is the last
surviving child of Louis and Edwina Mountbatten.
Lady Pamela is the widow of interior decorator and designer
David Nightingale Hicks (25 March 1929 – 29 March 1998), son of stockbroker
Herbert Hicks and Iris Elsie Platten. They were married on 13 January 1960 at
Romsey Abbey in Hampshire. The bridesmaids were Princess Anne, Princess
Clarissa of Hesse (daughter of her cousin Sophie), Victoria Marten
(god-daughter of the bride), Lady Amanda Knatchbull and the Hon. Joanna Knatchbull
(daughters of the bride's sister Patricia). Upon returning from honeymoon in
the West Indies and New York, Lady Pamela learnt of the death of her mother in
February 1960.
Lady Pamela Hicks on the real story behind Viceroy's House
Ensconced in the sitting room of her splendid Georgian home,
Lady Pamela Hicks is recalling a recent visit from Hugh Bonneville. The actor
is playing her father Lord Mountbatten in the the forthcoming film Viceroy’s
House, which depicts the finals months of British rule in India.
“I took him secretly into the study as I wanted to see his
salute,” she says. “Another actor, who played my father years ago, was a
terrible slouch – but Hugh held himself beautifully.
“He didn’t look like my father of course,” she adds. “He was
chosen because of the success of Downton Abbey.”
Lady Pamela, now 87, was 17 when her father was entrusted
with overseeing the transfer of power to an independent India in 1947.
Lady Pamela Hicks at
home in Piccadilly
Lady Pamela Hicks at home in Piccadilly CREDIT: JEFF GILBERT
She was used to privilege: her mother, Edwina, was a
glamorous heiress and her father, “Dickie”, a third cousin to the Queen and
Prince Philip’s uncle. Nothing however, could have prepared her for the extravagance
of life at Viceroy’s House in Delhi. With 340 rooms, marble walls and 12 indoor
courtyards, the Lutyens masterpiece had come to symbolise the splendour of the
Raj.
Seeing it recreated on the big screen – 70 years to the
month since her her parents were sworn in as the new Viceroy and Vicereine on
ornate thrones – was, says Lady Pamela, enormously enjoyable. Although she
admits to nit-picking all the way through the film, which stars Gillian
Anderson, Michael Gambon, Simon Callow and Om Puri.
“In the film, Viceroy’s House is swarming with pretty girls
but there wasn’t a woman in sight when I was there,” she says of the 500 Hindu,
Muslim and Sikh servants that pandered to the lavish lifestyle of the Raj in
its dying days.
There were 25 gardeners to attend to flower arrangements
alone, and there was one man who did nothing but prepare chickens
“The grandeur was alarming,” she continues. “There were
twenty-five gardeners to attend to flower arrangements alone, and there was one
man who did nothing but prepare chickens. The house was so vast that one had to
allow ten minutes to arrive at dinner on time.
“My father, of course, was quite unimpressed because he
spent his youth with his Russian aunt and uncle in much grander buildings,” she
adds.
Today, Lady Pamela lives in The Grove, an elegant country
house in Oxfordshire, decorated by her husband, the celebrated society interior
designer David Hicks who died of lung cancer in 1998. The couple have two
daughters, Edwina and India, a bridesmaid at the wedding of Prince Charles and
Princess Diana, and a son, the architect and designer Ashley.
As probably the only living witness to events within the
Viceroy’s walls during that tumultuous time, Lady Pamela proved an
indispensable source of information to director Gurinder Chadha, the filmmaker
behind Bend it Like Beckham.
“We spoke for hours and she even sent one of her people to
check the costumes while I was at the hairdresser. There I was, an array of
fantastic scarlet uniforms laid out at my feet, with ladies under dryers either
side of me,” Chadha says.
Despite her protestations to the contrary, the youngest
daughter of Lord Mountbatten has a sharp memory. In one of the early scenes of
the film, Lady Pamela’s mother, Edwina, is seen dismissing a racist maid who
had accompanied the family from England.
500 Hindu, Muslim and
Sikh servants that pandered to the lavish lifestyle of the Raj in its dying
days
500 Hindu, Muslim and Sikh servants pandered to the lavish
lifestyle of the Raj in its dying days CREDIT: KERRY MONTEEN/PATHE UK
“That was Mrs Hudson,” she recalls. “My mother heard her say
some unpleasant things and got rid of her. That was typical of the time. From
the outset my father insisted that half the guests at garden parties and
lunches should be Indian. I was staggered during one of them, when I
inadvertently overheard someone say: 'What are all these filthy Indians doing
here?’
“My parents were quite enlightened and brought us up so that
we had no prejudice.”
The idea of [Nehru] betraying my father, who was a friend,
by sleeping with his wife in his own house? No. It would have made it sordid
Lady Pamela’s mother, Edwina, is played by Gillian Anderson.
“I thought she did a splendid job,” she says, “although she tried so hard to
get my mother’s walk right, that she ended up giving her a little hump.”
Viceroy’s House does not touch on Lady Mountbatten’s
rumoured affair with India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, but Lady
Pamela insists, “there was no way they could have had a sexual thing at the
time because they were never alone. They were permanently surrounded by police
and ADCs.
“Besides, Jawaharlal was a very honourable man. The idea of
betraying my father, who was a friend, by sleeping with his wife in his own
house? No. It would have made it sordid.”
Despite her mother’s tireless efforts in refugee camps in
the bloody aftermath of partition – as well as her work with St John’s
Ambulance until she died in Borneo in 1960 aged 58 – it is her extra-marital
dalliances that are most often discussed.
“The world is only interested in sex,” says Lady Pamela. “I
remember, years after her death, sitting next to her former lover Bunny
Phillips, who told me: 'Your mother has this reputation of being some sort of
nymphomaniac, but actually she hated sex. She just couldn’t live without
admiration’.
[My] mother has this reputation of being some sort of
nymphomaniac, but actually she hated sex. She just couldn’t live without
admiration
“Jawaharlal and my mother undoubtedly loved one another.
They were soul mates,” she continues. “But my father was never jealous. He
could see that the relationship made her happier and easier to be around.”
Lord Mountbatten is portrayed in the film as a well-meaning
but powerless figure, whose determination to keep India united proves futile
when secret Westminster politicking is revealed and partition proves
inevitable.
Partition – the dividing line drawn through the nation to
create India and Pakistan – brought about the largest mass migration in human
history, with 14 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims displaced and many lives
lost in the massacres that followed.
As the split dawned, Viceroy’s House and its contents were
divided up between the new states – even down to the individual library
books. Lord Mountbatten was asked by
Nehru to stay on for ten months as governor-general of India, meaning his
family witnessed every struggle.
“The staff were given the choice to stay or go,” Lady Pamela
remembers. “And my father said there had to be a fair division of the items in
Viceroy’s House. But when they were splitting up the orchestra, they didn’t
know what to do with the cymbals. How do you divide cymbals? I think India got
them in the end.”
When they were splitting up the orchestra, they didn’t know
what to do with the cymbals. How do you divide cymbals? I think India got them
in the end
Returning to England with her parents in June 1948, Lady
Pamela mourned the colour and intensity of her adopted country. “My mother and
I thought of ourselves as Indian,” she says. Distractions quickly presented
themselves however, first as an invitation to attend the 1948 Olympics in
London alongside the Royal family and later when her family moved to Malta,
where her father resumed his Navy career. (He was eventually murdered by the
IRA in 1979.)
Lady Pamela accompanied Princess Elizabeth on her 1952
Commonwealth Tour, as a lady-in-waiting. It was during the trip that the future
Queen learned of her father, King George VI’s death. “I gave her a hug and a
kiss, but suddenly thought, 'Hang on. She is the Queen now.’ So I did a deep
curtsey.”
It is her memories of India however, that Lady Pamela holds
most dear – and with the 70th anniversary of independence on August 15, her
recollections of that day in New Delhi remain vivid.
“A tsunami of people filled every possible space as far as
the eye could see, euphoria etched on their faces,” she says. Making her way
through the surging crowds, she was encouraged by Nehru to remove her
high-heeled shoes and quite literally walk on the laps and shoulders of the
people. “Everyone laughed and cheered us on,” she says. “It was the most
important day of my life. I had witnessed the birth of two new nations and been
present while history was in the making.”
Daughter of Empire : Life as a Mountbatten by Pamela Hicks
is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson (£8.99). To order your copy, plus p&p, call 0844 871 1514 or visit
books.telegraph.co.uk
Pamela Hicks: 'I admired my mother, but I never liked her’
In a new memoir, Lady Pamela Hicks, daughter of the last
Viceroy, reflects on childhood and friendship with the Royals
Lady Pamela Hicks, 83, who was with Princess Elizabeth in
1952 when she heard she was now Queen
We’re trying to work out if Lady Pamela Hicks is the only
living witness to the behind-the-scenes dramas of Indian Independence Day in
1948, which she observed as the 18-year-old daughter of Lord Mountbatten, the
last Viceroy. “Well, I was speaking on the telephone recently to Gandhiji’s
granddaughter,” she confides. “She seems to think she saw everything, too, but
she was only nine at the time. I don’t count that.”
She doesn’t pronounce her verdict in a sour or
jostling-for-position way. She has simply got to an age – “Eighty-three and a
half, though my daughter will insist on telling everyone I am 84” – where she
tells it precisely as she sees it. Which makes her very amusing company and
rather indiscreet – not quite what I was expecting of an intimate of the Royal
family (The Duke of Edinburgh is her first cousin and she is a great, great
granddaughter of Queen Victoria). “Oh, but the Queen has such a good sense of
humour,” she protests. “And as for Prince Philip…”
That connection with the Windsors has meant that Lady Pamela
– “Pammy” to friends and family – has been there, or thereabouts, at some of
the key moments in 20th century history. As well as her handmaiden role at the
end of empire in India, she was one of the tiny group with Princess Elizabeth
in Kenya in 1952 on the morning the princess heard that her father, George VI,
had died and that she was now Queen. “I’m pretty sure,” she says, running
through the others in her mind, “that I’m the only one left.”
She was a bridesmaid at the royal wedding in 1947, too. There
is plenty of newsreel footage and archive material to show and tell generations
to come what happened in Westminster Abbey, but Lady Pamela can take us inside
Buckingham Palace, too. In her new memoir, Daughter of Empire, she describes
the bride remaining “wonderfully calm” as first her tiara breaks, then her
pearls (a gift from her father) go missing and finally her bouquet is
misplaced, eventually turning up in a cupboard. “It had been popped in to
remain cool.”
There are also witty pen portraits of the assembled European
royals – most of them distant relatives of Lady Pamela’s. Crown Princess
Juliana of the Netherlands “causes a stir” by bemoaning that “everyone’s
jewellery is so dirty”. “It was typical of Princess Juliana to say such a
thing, for she was very down to earth.” So what does Lady Pamela think of the
more relaxed style of today’s Dutch and Scandinavian royal families? “Everybody
talks about how they spend their time bicycling around their capital cities,”
she says, “but I can tell you that the Stockholm palace is infinitely bigger
than Buckingham Palace, and they still have plenty of flunkeys.”
Lady Pamela’s own domestic set-up is more modest. She lives
in a beautiful manor house in the south Oxfordshire countryside. The influence
of David Hicks is all about us. A designer who made his name in the Swinging
Sixties, he and Lady Pamela married at the start of that decade – “an
unorthodox match”, she writes in her memoir, but a happy one right up to his
death in 1998. “I came from this ordinary naval family,” she recalls, for once
employing a hefty dose of poetic licence, “and as a result of my marriage I’ve
now spent 50 years surrounded by dotty creative people.” Perhaps that accounts
for the gentle note of irreverence in her voice – that and the slight
throatiness that she says is the result of having a “permanent frog”.
As well as David’s vibrant interiors, and the avenues of
trees that carry my eye out of the floor-to-ceiling windows to outdoor rooms,
Lady Pamela also has work by her son, the designer Ashley Hicks, to admire and
puzzle over. “Did you notice that mound of earth with hands and feet sticking
out of it as you drove in?” she asks. “He tells me it is a giant trying to get
out of the earth.”
She still talks about her late husband as if he is in the
next room, or down the corridor lovingly restoring the dining-room panels that
were originally painted in the late 1930s for her wealthy heiress mother,
Edwina, by Rex Whistler. There have been biographies of David Hicks, including
one, she recounts with horror, “which described me as having led a very
sheltered life in the countryside before my marriage. That is why I felt
obliged to mention in my book that I had 10 proposals of marriage before I met
David.”
Ten sounds like an awful lot, I suggest. “It is what happens
when you are young. They weren’t all serious.” She makes a proposal sound
rather like asking someone out on a date. “Even when they were serious, I
didn’t want to go and live in the middle of a civil war.”
She is referring to the only suitor she names in the memoir
– “There were more in my first draft, but India [her daughter, the former model
and now Bahamas-based businesswoman] told me it was toe-curling.” George Arida
is described in the book as “a dashing young Lebanese man” who lived in Beirut
– hence the not entirely historically accurate reference to civil war. But
today she chooses to call him “the man in black”. As in the Milk Tray adverts,
scaling castle ramparts to bring her a box of chocolates? “Oh, no,” she giggles
naughtily, clearly taken by the idea. “I mean more like that American singer. You
know the one.” She pauses for a moment, but her memory is crystal clear.
“Johnny Cash.”
If her own marriage was blessed, Lady Pamela writes candidly
about the strains on her parents’ union. “My mother had at least 18 lovers,”
she says as if describing pairs of shoes, “but my father, to my knowledge, only
had one other. The saving grace was that he wasn’t jealous.”
Among Edwina Mountbatten’s reported love affairs was one
with “Panditji” Nehru, the first Indian Prime Minister, which is said to have
played out while her husband was bringing an end to British rule. While
accepting that the two were very close, Lady Pamela disagrees with those
biographers who claim that a physical relationship took place between the two.
She does so not to protect her mother’s reputation, but because she doubts they
ever had the opportunity to be alone, with so many servants and officials
always in attendance.
“I never liked her,” she says unflinchingly of her mother.
“She had no idea of how to play with children, unlike my father. She was a
woman who could never have a personal conversation with you, and who needed
constant flattery. If she didn’t have that, she became lonely and miserable.
“As a child, I admired her for her glamour. Then when we
were in India, and I saw the work she did there, especially with Japanese
prisoners of war, that admiration grew.”
Her mother died in 1960 at the age of 58, but Lady Pamela’s
staunch loyalty belongs to her father. “He could be so naive. To her dying day,
he was always worrying that Mummy would divorce him. 'I’ll have to move out to
the flat above the garage,’ he’d say to us. But although she said she had no
time for royalty, and that she was a true socialist, Mummy would never have
left him. Try keeping her away from a party at Buckingham Palace.”
Lady Pamela and her sister [who became Countess Mountbatten
after their father was murdered by the IRA in 1979] attended the wedding of
William and Kate – “they were kind enough to invite us” – but her days playing
any part in the royal set-up are over, she says. “There comes a moment, when
you have as large a family as the Queen does, when you just have to have a cull
and cut out all the people over 80.”
Which should leave her more time to write. “Oh, no. Not
after the agony of this book [her second volume of memoirs]. I’ve never been a
real writer. As a young woman I once submitted an article to The Times, about
my pet mongoose, and got a rejection letter by return of post.”
'Daughter of Empire: Life as a Mountbatten’ by Pamela Hicks
(W&N) is available from Telegraph Books at £13.99 + £1.35 p&p. Call
0844 871 1515 or go to books.telegraph.co.uk
Miles,
Chet, Ralph, & Charlie tells the story of the Andover Shop, and how our
co-founder
Charlie
Davidson transformed a tiny store into an unlikely literary and cultural salon
that brought together musicians like Miles Davis, Chet Baker, and Bobby Short,
as well as writers like Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray. Yet the story was not
who he dressed, but why. This book explores the unexpected role that Charlie's
particular style of patrician clothing played in making people visible in the
years before full civil rights.
The book
is an "oral history" told through interviews with three of the
leading voices in American style writing: G. Bruce Boyer (a former editor at
Esquire and Town & Country), Alan Flusser (who dressed Gordon Gekko for the
Wall Street movie, and who has written several of the canonical style books),
and Richard Press (the former CEO of the iconic American menswear firm, J.
Press).
Recently, I had a moment to sit down with
Constantine Valhouli, author of Miles, Chet, Ralph & Charlie, which details
the fascinating history of The Andover Shop in Boston.
If you were ever wondering how Old Money Style
clothes intersected with jazz, politics, and American history, read on…
And thanks again, Constantine.
BGT: Hi Constantine. Thank you for making the
time to sit with me today. I know you’re promoting Miles, Chet, Ralph, &
Charlie here in Europe as well as in the US, in addition to the other book(s)
you’re working on. So, time is precious.
CAV: Those clever fellows at CERN tell me that
time and space are infinite quantities, but my attorneys still bill by the hour
…
BGT: Ha! Okay, first, let’s address the title.
Who are the people you refer to?
CAV: Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Ralph Ellison … and
everyone thinks the eponymous Charlie is Charlie Parker but it’s the founder of
the Andover Shop, Charlie Davidson. One of main voices in the book, the tailor
Mor Sène, said that Miles, Chet, Ralph & Charlie was a brilliant title
because Miles Davis embodies east coast jazz while Chet Baker is west coast
jazz personified, and Charlie Davidson bridges the two. I nodded and said that
was exactly what I was thinking (but of course it wasn’t) and I’m happy to take
credit for that accidental insight after the fact.
BGT: And Charlie Davidson comes across in the
book as quite a character…
CAV: He was fascinating, complex, complicated,
generous, ornery, and volatile. And sometimes contradictory. If you asked two
people their opinions of him, you’d get such different answers that you’d
wonder if they were even discussing the same person. Which makes for great raw
material for a book.
BGT: Of course, The Andover Shop is a legendary
clothing establishment that defined what we call Old Money Style, or Ivy Style.
Can you give us a little background on the store—I wouldn’t call it a
boutique—to provide a some context?
CAV: The look was very much an insider’s thing
until it was democratized by the GI Bill and jazz, in roughly that order. Until
the GI Bill after the Second World War, there were fewer colleges and even less
financial aid. The students at these schools developed a distinctive look ––
navy blazers and tweed jackets; corduroy and grey flannel trousers (khaki
wouldn’t be introduced until after the war, but that’s another story). It was
very much a look of privilege. Each of the major colleges had a shop serving
the campus: J. Press at Yale and Princeton, The Andover Shop at Harvard, and so
on.
Alumni from J. Press went on to start many of the
defining clothing companies, and one of these was The Andover Shop. Each store
had something they did very well, something which reflected the founder’s
interests. For Charlie, it was jazz. He met Miles Davis and Chet Baker (as well
as other influential figures like the legendary jazz columnist and bon vivant
George Frazier) shortly after starting the shop. He began dressing them when
their sound was changing, and this called for a different look than the uniforms
of black tie or zoot suits. These musicians were playing on college campuses,
and saw how the members of their privileged audiences dressed. It was
fascinating to see how outsiders, in a time before civil rights, adapted the
look of consummate insiders.
BGT: So this is about music, a collision of
cultures, people who don’t ordinarily mix together getting to know one
another…but it’s still about clothing, right?
Clothing is central to the story of The Andover
Shop. Aspects of the story would be the same if it were a restaurant (a similar
focus on, literally, taste) or a music venue (I’m thinking of the ones founded
by impresario George Wein, which broke racial barriers by integrating
audiences). But Charlie’s kind of clothing is loaded with meaning: what we
aspire to, how we see ourselves, how we wish to be seen.
He understood the Boston Brahmin and how they saw
themselves, and sold clothing that appealed to that crowd and those in their
orbit. The details are very specific to New England. It’s Anglophile, but not
British, Italian-accented but not Italian. Over the years, I’ve visited similar
clothiers in places like London, Naples, and Stockholm, each reflects something
deeply local in its aspiration –– a nuance which I, as an outsider, am unable
to read. But for New England, Charlie understood how the traditions of Boston’s
aristocracy were codified into taste.
BGT: ‘Codified into taste’, that’s a phrase. But
this book is different from what readers might expect. It’s not a straight
nonfiction title detailing the names, dates, and events surrounding the
principal characters involved in The Andover Shop. You’ve compiled an ‘oral
history’. Why did you opt for that format in order to tell this story?
A: One of my favorite books is Nelson Aldrich’s
George, Being George, an oral history of his friend and Paris Review colleague
George Plimpton. Nelson and I ended up unexpectedly working together on The
Master of Eliot House, a book about a legendary Harvard figure named John
Finley.I mentioned to Nelson that I’d
gathered all these interviews for a book on Charlie Davidson, but didn’t want
to do a traditional narrative nonfiction approach. Almost everyone I spoke with
was a natural raconteur; Nelson suggested doing it as an oral history to
foreground these wonderful storytellers and preserve their distinct voices.
BGT: So the book’s a biography. It’s a tribute.
It’s about music. It’s about a changing America. And how The Andover Shop
contributed to and participated in all those. Was it difficult to maintain a
focus while putting the book together?
A: Heh. It’s difficult for me to maintain focus
in general. Especially before coffee. But Nina MacLaughlin of The Boston Globe
rather generously described the book as “kaleidoscopic,” which I think may be a
kind way of saying that I have the editorial focus of a ferret on amphetamines.
When I began, I had no idea where the book would
take me. Oral histories offer a parallel to documentary filmmaking, in that the
story emerges in the interviews and editing. The individuals in the book were
fascinating, and the deeper I got into the research, connections emerged among
these people. I tried to highlight the overlaps among the narrative threads,
and how Charlie and the shop were the nexus for many of these connections.
Miles Davis, sporting an oxford cloth button down
shirt in the studio.
BGT: Your contributors are a veritable pantheon
of men’s style icons—I wouldn’t call them ‘fashion’ icons, but men who’ve made
some tremendous contributions to the way we think about clothes and the way we
dress. How did their participation come about?
CAV: Bruce Boyer is a former editor at Town &
Country and Esquire, and has written several of the definitive books on
traditional men’s style. Alan Flusser is an author and clothier who may be best
known for dressing the characters in the Wall Street movie –– and in turn
influencing how actual financiers chose to dress. And Richard Press is the
former CEO of J. Press, and the grandson of that firm’s founder, so he has a
direct connection to how this look began and how it evolved in relation to a
changing America. I think this book may be the first time they’ve all appeared
in such depth in one volume.
Their participation? It was during the pandemic,
so we were all bored and I just reached out to mention the project, and what
followed was a wonderful, ongoing conversation.
BGT: Charlie Davidson spots a young Barack Obama
from a mile way—and a few years ahead of his time—proclaiming that the young
senator would eventually be president. How did owning The Andover Shop put
Charlie— and so many other players in your book—at the epicenter of politics?
The shop is in Boston, not Washington DC. What was going on there?
CAV: Malcolm Gladwell described Charlie as one of
the most connected people in the United States. It helped that the shop was
across the street from Harvard, and next to the “final clubs” on Mount Auburn
Street. The shop drew a cross-section of professors, students, and
distinguished guests who were all deeply immersed in their fields. It’s no
surprise that he’d know of Barack Obama long before the public did.
BGT: And for some reason, this same man and this
same store were neck-deep in cutting edge culture.
CAV: Towards the end of his life –– and he lived
past ninety –– Charlie was getting into rap music. But his first love was jazz,
which we now think of as serious, something to be studied. But at the time, it
was pop culture. Instead of Jazz at Lincoln Center imagine “Heavy Metal at
Lincoln Center” in fifty years, and you get a sense of the arc that jazz has
traveled from the cultural margins to a place in the American pantheon. (I
should add that the two Andover Shop figures were closely involved with Jazz at
Lincoln Center: social critic Albert Murray, and his protégé Quincy Jones.)
Al Murray and Ralph Ellison understood that jazz
was never just entertainment, it was always political. It reflected, and was
part of, the struggle for civil rights. Clothing was, too, which is why it
played such a central role in jazz. Clothing made status visible, and was a way
of claiming space publicly. After doing this book, I’m no longer surprised that
a clothier would find himself at a nexus of the cultural and political
spheres.
BGT:Yankee patricians and jazz musicians, trying on sport coats in the same
shop. This just seems like a soap opera or a novel that no one would believe.
CAV: The marvelous Bruce Boyer described both
this book and The Master of Eliot House as “having a cast of characters that
would be improbable in a work of fiction.” I think back to Twain’s dictum that
“fiction is constrained by what’s plausible but reality only by what’s
possible.”
BGT: Was it just Charlie’s personality that held
it all together? Or was it just a particular time in history—and a particular
man and place—that might never come around again?
CAV: Yes. A number of people tell stories of
Charlie kicking people out of the store if they couldn’t handle being in a
racially integrated space. And it was his personal interests that drew these
people together in the first place. He loved jazz, literature, history, and
politics and had a rare opportunity to turn his shop into a salon where those
subjects were discussed on a daily basis by some of the leading minds. And then
he’d sell them a sweater or some socks.
I feel that there was always, will always be, a
Charlie of some sort. He’s almost an archetype. When I was in Copenhagen, there
was a museum exhibit about clothing of the royal court. I sent Charlie a note
saying that one of his collateral ancestors had probably put those together ––
and combined technical skill with the knowledge of the social dynamics of the
royal court. He was amused.
BGT: One of the chapters of your book bears the
title, “When Substance Had Style”. That really resonated with me, and left me a
little sad. Were there any points during the final review of the manuscript
that you felt a little depressed? Like we’d lost something we might not get
back?
CAV: Oh! That was a particularly melancholy
chapter, but I think it reflected the price that Charlie –– and all of us who
try to gather remarkable circles around ourselves –– must pay: the eventual
death of all these friends. The gradual tightening of that circle, and the
ever-present question of whether we’ve made some small difference in the lives
of the people around us.
The short answer to your question is an emphatic
yes. Those decades were certainly not a golden age for everyone, but there was
an elegance to them that seems impossibly distant now. The majority of people
aspire towards something very different, one which I find much less compelling.
BGT: I know you’re very private, but can you
share with us your own personal experience at The Andover Shop?
There was this one time involving the volleyball
team, a sloth that escaped from the Franklin Park Zoo, and an open bar, but my
lawyers have advised me not to discuss it until The Andover Shop’s insurance
company settles the claim. But I think the damage to their building has finally
been repaired, and there’s talk of putting up a historic plaque to mark the
memorable (if unfortunate) events.
BGT: Very diplomatic! And what’s next for you?
When is the next book going to be published?
The Master of Eliot House comes out, in limited
edition, in September. And in the meantime, I look forward to catching up on
sleep.
BGT: Very much looking forward to that. Rest a
little, and we’ll talk again soon.
