Lord Mountbatten: India Hicks recollects day of IRA assassination

We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info

Lord Mountbatten’s death at the hands of the IRA triggered outrage, condemnation and an outpouring of grief around the world. Mountbatten was Prince Philip’s maternal uncle, and the second cousin once removed of the Queen. While on holiday in County Sligo, Ireland, he was assassinated.

IRA member Thomas McMahon had crept onto his unguarded boat in the night and planted a radio-controlled bomb. 

When Mountbatten and his party reached a few hundred yards from shore, the bomb was detonated. The boat was destroyed in the blast, and Mountbatten, then 79, was pulled alive from the water, but died from his injuries before they reached the shore.

However, he was not the only one to die in the explosion.

Mountbatten’s 14-year-old grandson Nicholas Knatchbull and 15-year-old Northern Irish crew member Paul Maxwell were both killed by the blast.

Doreen, Dowager Lady Brabourne, his son-in-law’s mother, died from her injuries the following day. Mountbatten’s daughter Lady Pamela Hicks, her husband and their other son Timothy were all severely injured.

India Hicks, another of Mountbatten’s 10 grandchildren, narrowly escaped the blast herself after choosing to stay and watch a Laurel and Hardy film rather than join her grandfather, cousins, aunt and uncle on the boat.

India joins Alan Titchmarsh on ‘Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh’ on Remembrance Sunday to discuss her grandfather’s legacy.

She was just 11 when he was murdered, and was shockingly given Valium in the aftermath of his death, which she recalled in the 2019 BBC documentary The Day Mountbatten Died.

Within a week of the ceremonial funeral at Westminster Abbey, India was sent off to Gordonstoun, the boarding school in the north of Scotland that royals including Prince Philip and Prince Charles had attended.

She was given a very public reminder of her grandfather’s death in the dormitories one night.

India told the documentary: “I remember feeling desperately lonely going off to boarding school without my mother.

“The first night, someone, after lights out, said a joke, and maybe we can’t even put this in because it’s too horrific.

DON’T MISS:
Princess Anne’s christening snub before Meghan and Harry dilemma [INSIGHT]
Meghan and Harry ‘want media spotlight’ despite royal exit: ‘Strange’ [EXCLUSIVE]
Queen will serve country ‘until she dies’ amid health concern [EXPERT]

“But, she said: ‘How did they know Lord Mountbatten had dandruff?’

“No one in the dorm at the lights out knew the answer.  The answer was, of course, ‘because they found his head and shoulders on the beach’.”

India recalled: “It was a pretty staggering moment.”

The IRA claimed responsibility for Mountbatten’s death in a statement shortly after.

Mr McMahon was convicted on November 23, 1979, based on forensic evidence.

He was later freed under the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

India told The Telegraph in 2018 that she has “amazing memories” of her grandparents’ houses — the Broadlands estate in Hampshire and the Irish castle.

She said of her grandfather: “I was aware my grandfather was a war hero. There were signs in the house, model naval ships and uniforms, and I would go with him to watch Trooping the Colour. There was a star quality to him, definitely.

“He used to call me ‘Decibel’ because, apparently, I was quite noisy.

“But as the youngest of 10 grandchildren I was probably just trying to be heard.”

India was later expelled from Gordonstoun for entertaining boys in her room, and then went backpacking across India.

Now 54, India married her partner of 26 years, David Flint Wood, in September.

After postponing the wedding twice due to the coronavirus pandemic, they tied the knot in India’s home village of Brightwell Baldwin in Oxfordshire.

India Hicks appears on ‘Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh’ on Sunday at 9:25am.

Source: Read Full Article