Lady Katherine Brandram

Lady Katherine Brandram, who died on October 2 aged 94, was the former Princess Katherine of Greece and the last surviving great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

Born on May 4 1913, Princess Katherine was the third daughter of King Constantine I and Queen Sophie; they also had three sons, all of whom were to become king as the royal family had to negotiate an era that saw abdication, dictatorship, frequent coups and the displacements of world war.

As an infant Katherine had the distinction of being the god-daughter of the entire Greek Army and Navy, but this offered her little protection in childhood.

Her mother was a sister of the Kaiser, and in the First World War Katherine's parents were accused of being pro-German. At the age of three she had to be rescued from the family's villa, Tatoi, outside Athens, after the secret police set the house ablaze.

Exile became a way of life. In 1917 her parents took her to the safety of Switzerland, but in 1920 her father returned to Greece, reigning as King for a further two years before they again went into exile — this time in Sicily, where Constantine died in 1923. Since the age of seven, Katherine had been looked after by an English governess, Miss Edwards.

Katherine and her family now spent many years in Florence, living at the Villa Sparta, where she became a keen painter.

It was decided to educate her in England, and she attended a boarding school at Broadstairs before going on to North Foreland Lodge. In 1934 she was a bridesmaid at the wedding of her first cousin, Princess Marina, to the Duke of Kent.

Of Katherine's brothers, Alexander was King of Greece from 1917 to 1920 (until his death from blood poisoning caused by a monkey's bite); George reigned from 1922 to 1924, and again from 1935 to 1947; and Paul from 1947 to 1964.

On George's second accession in 1935, Katherine returned to her homeland, but the outbreak of war meant that she was soon on the move once again.

In 1941 she accompanied her brother Paul and his wife Frederika to exile in South Africa, travelling via Crete and Egypt. Katherine worked as a nurse at a hospital in Cape Town, where she was known as "Sister Katherine", and for a time she cared for soldiers who had lost their sight. For four years she was completely without news of her sister, Queen Helen of Romania.

After the war Katherine returned to England, and in 1947 she married Major Richard Brandram, MC, a rugby-playing Royal Artillery officer who was the son of a retired prep school headmaster. The couple had met on board the Asconia when she was leaving Alexandria on her way back to England, and he was returning home from Baghdad.

According to Major Arthur Gould-Lee, the historian of the Greek royal family: "In the way of unattached bachelors on shipboard [Brandram] regarded with a certain selective interest the advent of fresh feminine passengers on the first- class deck."

Katherine's brother King George announced the engagement "with particular satisfaction". The major's mother was the subject of considerable press attention, stating: "It isn't every day you become the future mother-in-law of a princess."

King George of Greece died three weeks before the wedding in Athens. Instead his successor, King Paul, her second brother, acted as best man with a mourning band on his arm.

After the wedding King George VI granted the Princess the title of Lady Katherine Brandram, giving her the status of a duke's daughter in the order of precedence. She and her husband lived first at Belgravia, later moving to a cottage at Marlow.

A shy, somewhat nervous woman whose favourite dish was roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, Lady Katherine lived quietly but remained in close touch with her own and the British royal families. She attended the Queen's wedding to Prince Philip (her first cousin), and was a guest at the service to mark Prince Philip's 80th birthday at St George's Chapel, Windsor, in 2001.

Richard Brandram died in 1994, and Lady Katherine is survived by their son.