India Hicks

over him.

Of course, it missed him and it hit the wall.

And much to her annoyance, David looked at the wall and said, brilliant.

And then he did a series of Coca-Cola coloured walls in a deep, dark brown and great lacquer and shine.

He was unusual.

He was definitely a tricky dad, but he was an extraordinary man and really set the world alight with these vibrating, never clashing, vibrating colour schemes of pinks and purples and puces, mixing old with new, geometrics.

And he went on to do gardens.

I mean, he was brilliant in his design.

They met at a cocktail party.

He, of course, was very, very spellbound by my baton's daughter, who at the time was very famous and unmarried, clearly unmarried, but sort of unmarried at the age where people were beginning to think, is she ever going to get married?

And my father was devastatingly good looking and very unusual to my mother.

She hadn't really encountered that kind of

exciting 1960s world obviously she came from this very you know this very strong obvious world of aristocracy and David Hicks was different completely different and I think she fell in love with that I also think because she'd had such an unusual life she wanted something that was unusual is it comparable at all Princess Margaret and Tony Snowden yes it is probably slightly yeah

Yes, well, you know, Tony Stone was established, an establishment, and my father wasn't, definitely.

My father was born in Essex, you know, he did not come from that world.

But he learnt to shoot and fish and ride extremely well.

Not fishing so much, but he learnt to shoot and ride extremely well.

And he did shake up the quiet English drawing room with these amazing ideas of design.

And what age were they when they got together?

I think my mother was sort of late, late 20s.