3 minute read
The Rurbanist
India Hicks’ biggest worry is whether the dog food will arrive on the island
Q: Where’s home to you?
A: Hard to say because I am on the road for business so much of the time right now. My dogs live on Harbour Island in the Bahamas, my post is sent to Harbour Island, I will probably be buried on Harbour Island, but my mother is in England, as are some of my children and our newly built house. Then my company, team and partners are in Los Angeles.
Q: What’s been your most memorable night out in London?
A: When I was nine I was taken to see the Royal Tournament in London because my grandfather, considered a military hero and at that time Colonel-in-Chief of the Life Guards, was taking the salute from the Royal Box. ‘Make sure to wake me up just before I have to stand and salute,’ he whispered to me. This was the most important job of my young life.
India Hicks
Q: Best thing a cabbie has ever said to you?
A: I can’t remember the best but I do remember being in a cab with my older sister by five years and being asked if I were the older one. Deeply upsetting.
Q: Which historic country house would you most like to snap up?
A: Broadlands, my grandparents’ home in Hampshire, where I used to spend Christmas. Despite its grandeur I remember our large family cramming into my grandfather’s study and gathering around a small crackling television set to watch the Queen’s speech, under a display of swords and daggers, including a macabre headhunter’s sword.
Q: Last film you saw?
A: Breathe. I saw it on an early-morning flight expecting to doze off but instead I found myself in floods of tears and sobbing loudly, much to the surprise of my neighbour.
Q: Where do you go when you don’t want anyone to get hold of you?
A: Windermere Island, a neighboring island to the one I live on, and on which my father built a house styled after an Egyptian mausoleum, it has notoriously bad internet and a lot of mosquitoes.
Windermere Island is the perfect escape with its many mosquitoes and lack of internet
Q: Post Brexit Britain, sum it up in a sentence...
A: Luckily, because I am removed from all the shenanigans surrounding Brexit my biggest worry is whether the boat with the dog food will arrive on the island.
Q: What’s your favourite game?
A: Canasta or Racing Demon, two card games from my childhood. I can almost hear my sister slamming down her cards and shouting ‘Out!’ as she won yet again.
Q: Which book would you take and song would you listen to on your desert island?
A: Can I take the entire archive of Cabana magazine instead? I’d read it while listening to Fleetwood Mac.
Cabana’s back catalogue would accompany India to a deserted island
Q: What three items would you save from your burning house?
A: My scrap books, there are many more than three so don’t make me choose.
Q: What would really improve your life?
A: Besides a private jet, more Charbonnel et Walker Rose & Violet Creams.
Chocolates would really improve life
Q: Who’s coming round for dinner and what are you cooking?
A: Hopefully my mother because I miss her, and homemade shepherd’s pie.
Q: Where was the last place you ‘discovered’?
A: Santa Teresa in Costa Rica. I certainly did not discover it, but I did fall in love.
A Slice of England – The Story of Four Houses by India Hicks is published by Rizzoli, priced at £39.95
