There’s all sorts of presents that a girl of seven might want to put on her Christmas wishlist.
There’ll be toys, games and perhaps books, but it is a fair bet that the list won’t feature a gravy boat made of the finest china.
But that is just what the then Prince Charles gave his goddaughter India Hicks at Christmas when she was seven.
In fact, every year another piece of crockery would arrive until – by the time she was in her 20s – Ms Hicks had a full dinner service.
The designer and former model, who is now 58, said it was ‘very confusing’ to get a piece of crockery every year as a child, but now views the idea as a ‘a useful, brilliant present’.
Ms Hicks, who is the granddaughter of Lord Mountbatten of Burma and was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Charles and Princess Diana, says she now has a complete collection of royal crockery thanks to the future king ‘thinking ahead’.
She told the Rosebud podcast: ‘Every year, a cardboard box would arrive from the royal maker, Goode, wasn’t it? And in it would be a saucer or a gravy dish or a cup.’
She said that it was ‘very confusing to have a gravy dish for Christmas’ as a seven-year-old but it was ‘extraordinary as a 27-year-old or a 37-year-old to have a complete dining set’.
India Hicks said she was given a china gravy boat by then-Prince Charles, her godfather, when she was just seven
The designer and former model pictured with the then-Prince of Wales when she was a child
King Charles gave his goddaughter a china gravy boat when she was seven, just one in a series of ‘confusing’ gifts to Ms Hicks
Ms Hicks continued: ‘What a useful, brilliant present. Instead of some plastic toy that you were given at seven that you’ve no idea where it’s gone.
‘And I am a godparent to many godchildren… can I live up to that brilliant thinking ahead of what someone would like later in life?’
Thomas Goode is a tableware firm established in 1827, based in Mayfair and famous for sourcing and selling the finest china, silverware, and glass from top manufacturers such as Spode and Wedgwood.