David Hicks in his own words

VI: Meeting the Mountbattens

Edwina Mountbatten painted by Salvador Dali in New York, 1941, her pet lion Sabi beside her. My father met Dali in the 60s and reminded him of the portrait. ‘Ah’ said Dali ‘I remember her well. Such beautiful feet!’

Continuing my father’s recollections in 1997 of the events of 38 years before, when he had met my mother at a cocktail party, arranged by Peter Coats. ‘He told me his name three times’ she remembered later, and ‘my friends told me he looked like a Greek god.’ They had been seeing each other for weeks and she had never mentioned her parents, which was starting to worry him…

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One day I told Pammy I was going to stay the following weekend with Bat and Buster Tong. “Not the man who runs Daddy’s shoot?,” she asked, “tall, grey, a bit bald?” She was very surprised that I knew them. I explained that the wife was a great friend of mine, tiny, petite and American. She was much younger than him and came to London quite often. “Are you going to be in the country?”, I asked, “because I could call in on the way back, when I’ll pass the gates of Broadlands.” “Sunday evening,” she said, “yes, that would be fine.” She obviously knew that her parents would be doing a Sunday evening function in London.