History is replete with persons who contributed to its making, and those who enjoyed a ringside seat of experiencing all that was unfolding. Lady Pamela Carmen Louise Hicks (nee Mountbatten) belongs to the latter. As the younger daughter of Lord Louis Mountbatten and Lady Edwina Mountbatten, she lived through numerous historic moments, throughout her life, but in particular, during her early formative years. Born in Madrid, Spain on 19 April 1929, Pamela was baptized two months later in the Royal Chapel at St James Palace, and had amongst her many godparents, King Alphonso XIII, the then King of Spain.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, Pamela and her sister Patricia were sent to the United States of America. However, her life took a drastic turn in 1947, with two particularly significant events – a new home in India and a family wedding in the United Kingdom. Both these events would have an extraordinary impact on the young girl, as she experienced firsthand, much that unfolded in both countries at that period of time.
A new home in India
The first, was her new home, in India, which was a considerable distance from the environs she had been used to and grownup in. Her father of course was no stranger to South Asia having lived in Ceylon in the early 1940s at the height of the Second World War, when he was the Supreme Allied Commander of South East Asia. Her passage to India in February 1947, was owing to her parents being tasked with a new responsibility at the last stages of the colonial period in that country. A 17-year-old Pamela joined her parents on what would be a very adventurous trip to the subcontinent, with which connections would remain for years to come. Her daughter, India Hicks reflects that “The moment she arrived in India at the tender age of 17, following her parents who had been appointed as the last Viceroy and Vicereine, she was put to work in the medical camps just outside Delhi. This led to a lifelong involvement with charitable organisations - and to me being aware from an early age that ‘from whom much is given much is expected’.”
Her father’s term as Viceroy ended at the dawn of India’s independence in August 1947, and thereafter, he was appointed the first Governor-General on the Union of India, serving till 21 June 1948. Yet her association with India would continue. Prior to her father’s term ending, Pamela had been appointed as Assistant to Major General Thomas Wynford Rees, the head of the Military Committee of the Indian Emergency Cabinet. She had access to some of the most sensitive information of that time, as the partition was unfolding, leading to the creation of Pakistan and independence of India. She also served for a brief period as Secretary to V. K. Krishna Menon, following his appointment as India’s High Commissioner in London, widening her knowledge and understanding of India in that post-independence period.
Although young in years, Pamela’s work and enterprising nature had seen her engaging with many leaders, including Mahathma Gandhi with whom she had meditated, and the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, who would even write lengthy letter to the younger daughter of the Mountbattens. His association with the Mountbatten family has been extensively discussed, especially his closeness friendship with her mother, Lady Edwina Mountbatten, yet the trouble he took to write to young Pamela, long after she had left India and returned to London, was significant.
In one letter, preserved in the Nehru Archive, he writes to her about a short story she had given him for his views. “I liked reading it, and I think that it is very well written. It flows on smoothly without any padding. The reader becomes more and more interested in Neola and to some extent, of course, in the girl and her reactions to Neola. Thus, it becomes a live story which leaves an impression and a memory after reading it. Looked at from the point of view of an animal story, it is good, as it shows a great deal of intimate observation. I doubt if any expert zoologists have observed a Neola so carefully and noted its characteristics. Thus, your story has a certain scientific value.” He goes onto encourage her writing abilities noting that “I think it is so good that you are sure to find a periodical which will publish it. You must go ahead with this and you must also write some more.”
Nehru goes on to refer to a dinner the night before, at which he was joined by her mother, and an American singer and actress, Eartha Mae Kitt, and confiding in Pamela, he writes that “I am afraid that I was not terribly impressed in any way by the lady. It is not fair for me to judge her because I have not seen her performing. But I did not see anything terribly attractive or exciting about her.”
A month after Pamela Mountbatten married David Hicks in January 1960, her mother Lady Edwina Mountbatten died. The Indian Prime Minister’s sister, Vijay Lakshmi Pandit, serving at the time as India’s High Commissioner in London, wrote to her brother ahead of his visit to the United Kingdom stating that “He (Lord Mountbatten) clings to those who knew and loved Edwina. So, I have come to realise that he is very anxious that you should go to Broadlands. I know that a visit by you will help him and also Patricia and Pammy very much.” The closeness of these families was evident, well beyond their years of association in India, and ‘Pammy’ as Pamela Mountbatten is fondly referred to, cherished her time in India, even naming her youngest daughter after the country.
She would return to India many times, with her mother, husband or on her own, and most often stayed with Prime Minister Nehru. One of those visits with her mother was in the first quarter of 1959, when they travelled to various parts of the country. For Nehru however, the moment that stood out the most, and about which he wrote to Lord Mountbatten, “This afternoon I did something which I had been thinking of for the last ten years or more. Edwina and Pammy took me right up the great dome of Rashtrapati Bhavan and we looked at the city of Delhi spread out before us on all sides. It has grown greatly.”
Pamela’s connection to India was due initially to her accompanying her parents in 1947, but the strength of the relationship was evident just a year later when, Nehru acknowledged her in his farewell speech to the Mountbattens in June 1948, when he stated that “She came here straight from school, and possessing all the charm she does, she did a grown-up person’s work in this troubled scene of India. I do not know if all of you who are present here know the work she has done, but those who do know well how splendid that has been and how much it is appreciated.”
In the first two decades of the 21st century, the passion for writing, so carefully nurtured in her youth, as well as the exotic places and intriguing personalities she met across India, resulted in the publication of two particularly significant books - ‘India Remembered: A Personal Account of the Mountbattens During the Transfer of Power’ which was co-authored with her daughter, India, and published in 2007, and the second, ‘Daughter of Empire: Life as a Mountbatten’ which was released in 2014.
Closer to the Royal Family
The other significant development of 1947, was when her father’s sister’s son, Philip Mountbatten, married Princess Elizabeth, the heir to the British throne, on 20 November 1947. A young Pamela Mountbatten, who returned briefly from India, was one of the eight bridesmaids attending to the young princess at this wedding. Although their friendship extended to her younger days, even before the marriage, they would remain close over the years as Pamela was made a Lady-in-Waiting to the princess and thereafter continued in this position, when Elizabeth became Queen.
In 1952, when Princess Elizabeth was in Kenya on the first leg of a Commonwealth tour that would have also taken her to Australia, New Zealand and Ceylon, her father King George VI passed away. Lady Pamela Hicks, who was traveling with her, was present at Treetops Hotel, in Kenya’s Aberdare National Park, witnessing Princess Elizabeth becoming Queen Elizabeth.
When the postponed 1952 royal tour commenced at the end of 1953 and flowed into the next year, the royal couple, visited Ceylon in April 1954, and Pamela Mountbatten was Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen. She has been photographed at several events during the royal visit, the most notable being the opening of Parliament, which took place at the Independence Memorial Hall in Colombo.
Lady Pamela Hicks, served the Queen for many decades, travelling with her across the United Kingdom, and also to many countries, as she supported her longstanding friend, relative and sovereign. She was even seen at her funeral in September 2022, when an era ended, and the world that Pamela had grown-up in and known so well was gradually coming to a close. She had enjoyed the thrills of life, known kings and prime ministers, toured extensively, gained immense knowledge, and yet had also endured personal tragedy as when her mother passed away in her sleep in Malaysia in 1960, and when her father was assassinated on 27 August 1979 in Mullaghmore, Ireland by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Her father had been in his fishing boat, with his eldest daughter, Patricia, her husband, John Knatchbull, their twin sons, and his daughter’s mother-in-law. The bomb claimed the lives of the last viceroy of India, one of his grandsons, the child’s grandmother and a boat assistant.
Following the death of her own husband, David Hicks on 29 March 1998, Lady Pamela Hicks continued to make the most of the years ahead of her. As her daughter India Hicks, in announcing her mother’s passing noted, “through the prism of a crowded and remarkable past, she made incomparable company, carrying her memories lightly, and always with humour. My mother maintained right up to the end, the impeccable style, sharp mind, and effortless charm that made her not only a cherished institution, but truly the last of her kind.”
The death of Pamela Carmen Louise Hicks (nee Mountbatten) on 5 June 2026 has seen the closure of yet another window into a past, that saw so much, meant so much and yet remains much of a mystery to many, especially in South Asia.
ly the last of her kind.”
This article is part of 'The Window Series'
