Ashley Hicks, son of Lady Pamela Hicks and grandson of Lord and Lady Mountbatten, on his family's relationship with India: From his grandfather holidaying there with the Prince of Wales to his grandmother's platonic love affair with the former Prime Minister of India... And the new film, Viceroy's House, about his grandparents, starring Hugh Bonneville

This was Christmas 1968, outside the front door of Broadlands, my grandparents’ home in Hampshire, where we spent every Christmas until my grandfather died. I am the five-year-old boy who is not looking at the camera but instead admiring his cousin Philip Knatchbull, who because he was older, was my great hero.

In the picture are a mixture of relatives and staff. Next to me is my sister, Edwina, and in the centre of the group under the doorway is my grandfather, Louis Mountbatten. My mother, Lady Pamela Hicks, is at the very end on the left. (My dad had been standing next to her but took this photograph, hence the gap.)

My mother had a conventional early childhood, but then her parents took her out of school and said, ‘We need you to come to India. You’ll be able to help us to win over the young people, and it will be a marvellous experience for you.’