India Hicks may be King Charles' goddaughter, but despite growing up near royalty, she is refreshingly honest. A British designer and charity worker, she is the mother of Princess Pamela Hicks, Prince Philip's cousin, and was a bridesmaid at the 1981 wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Recently, she was in New York to promote her new book, Lady Pamela: My Mother's Extraordinary Years as Daughter to the Viceroy of India, Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen, and Wife of David Hicks. She gave an interview to “Marie Claire” when she visited New York City to promote the book.

Hicks told Marie Claire that her 95-year-old mother “obviously was a front runner in a historic event, an extraordinary life.”

“No one was with the queen [Elizabeth] at the moment she became queen today,” she continued. Lady Pamela, better known as “Lady P,” was serving as the princess's maid of honor in Kenya on the day Princess Elizabeth learned of the death of her father, King George VI.

Lady Pamela traveled around the world with Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth during their two Commonwealth tours (the first was interrupted by the death of King George VI) and attended the royal wedding as a bridesmaid. Although she was part of the traditional royal machine, today, according to Hicks, her mother is a strong supporter of a more modern future for the British monarchy.

“She believes in modernizing the royal family the way it should be and absolutely believes in thinning it out and making it this central, hardworking foursome,” the author told Marie Claire, referring to King Charles III, Queen Camilla, and the Prince and Princess of Wales.

Hicks also says that her mother was all for keeping things fresh with regard to the term lady-in-waiting itself. When Camilla changed her name from “lady-in-waiting” to “companion,” I immediately asked my mother, 'What do you think?'

The role of the lady-in-waiting has changed over time, but women like Lady Pamela have always been a familiar face throughout the long itinerary of the royal family, Hicks explains. 'My mother was there to make sure the dress was right and the lipstick was right.

“In that world, you probably need someone you feel very comfortable with, but as my mother would say, ‘you also need someone you can laugh with.’”

As for the research process, she says it helped that Lady P. had a lot of memorabilia. Hicks explains that “my mother kept everything,” and that she went through Lady Pamela's extensive archives to create a coffee table book with a nostalgic photo collage of diaries, letters from Queen Elizabeth, and historical items from her mother's life.

One discovery surprised her. 'I found this funny little box of slides,' Hicks told Marie Claire, revealing that she took them to the British photo store Snappy Snaps to be developed. 'All the pictures were of the queen. Riding horses, chatting with everyone in the courtyard, wearing boots. I wondered what Snappy Snaps thought of it,” she said with a laugh. In addition to these never-before-published photos of the royal family, Lady Pamela includes many family photos of India's grandparents and her father, the legendary designer David Hicks. One of the most personal parts of the book is the 1979 assassination of Hick's grandfather, Louis “Dickie” Mountbatten.

“I had never heard the term ‘political assassination,’” she says. She was 11 years old at the time and vacationing with her grandfather and other family members in Ireland when his boat was blown up by the Irish Republican Army (IRA), killing Mountbatten along with India's 14-year-old cousin, Nicholas Knatchbull, her grandmother, Doreen Knatchbull, and a local teenage boy.

Grandfathers.

Hicks, who was famously close to his grandfather, tells Marie Claire, “I think it was very painful for Charles.”

Regarding Lady P's outlook on her father's assassination, India says her mother told her, “I think it was a very difficult time for Charles. We move forward, we look forward. I think there's a big lesson there."

She also said, ”I think there's a big lesson there.

Hicks, who divides his time between Oxfordshire, England and the Bahamas, prefers to be known these days for his disaster relief work with the Global Empowerment Mission and as a patron of his godfather's charity, the King's Trust.

The mother of five noted that Lady Pamela has a room full of “fascinating” diaries and letters, including correspondence with Queen Elizabeth, and hinted at a future book.

She told Marie Claire magazine that her mother and the late Queen Elizabeth “corresponded for years.” Lady P. lived in a “speedy and exciting world of design” with her husband, but she and Queen Elizabeth had a close relationship through their letters.

“They wrote to each other at the end of each year, around Christmas time. A sort of summation of their lives.”

On what we can learn from her mother's experience, the humanitarian tells Marie Claire: “We have to learn from our mothers. We have lost sight of much of it a little bit. She is obviously talking about duty and service. But she says, 'Those are words we never hear anymore.'”

“It's a world that is disappearing,” she notes, “but these lessons are so important that they will not disappear.