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  Prince Harry in Afghanistan > I don’t miss boozy nights back home

The dust, dirt and desperation of the Afghan battlefield could not have been more different from Prince Harry’s cosy life back in Blighty. Days without a shower, wearing the same filthy uniform, digging holes in the desert sand for toilets, no running water and sleeping in ditches under freezing skies, worrying when the next Taliban attack will come are just some of the nightmares the young royal has endured out in Helmand province.

  But Harry has no complaints about the hardships and says it is about as “close to being normal” as he is likely to get. The 23-year-old has also insisted he is not missing his boozy nights out in London clubs and said he would rather spend his time mucking in with squaddies than other officers.

Speaking of life on the frontline, Harry added: “It’s bizarre. I’m out here now, haven’t really had a shower for four days, haven’t washed my clothes for a week and everything seems completely normal. Now there’s a full moon, you go for a number two, you take your spade and nine times out of 10 someone stumbles upon you when you’re having a s**t… they don’t bat an eyelid because it’s normal out here.”

  “I think this is about as normal as I’m ever going to get. What am I missing the most? Nothing really. Music, we’ve got music, we’ve got light, we’ve got food, we’ve got (non-alcoholic) drink. No, I don’t miss booze, if that’s the next question. It’s nice just to be here with all the guys and just mucking in as one of the lads.”

But Harry, who has been commanding Spartan tanks, did admit there were some comforts he is looking forward to at home. He added: “I can’t wait to get back and just sit on a sofa. It’s going to be ridiculous after bouncing around in a turret, my hips are bruised, my a**e is bruised. It’s nice to get out here, live it rough so that when you get back you can actually appreciate it.”

On his arrival in Helmand just before Christmas, Harry spent time on the ground at Forward Operating Bases Dwyer and Delhi in the far south of the province. With nightly temperatures plunging to minus 8C, there was no heating in sleeping areas and little shelter from the elements. At both camps a row of angled pipes half-buried in the sand outdoors - affectionately named “desert roses” - serve as urinals. The main toilets are the dreaded “thunderboxes” - plywood structures with a hole cut in the centre inside wooden cubicles.

  At Dwyer, water shortages before the annual rains arrive meant showering and shaving was restricted to once every three days. Soldiers sleep in crude bunkers built from huge Hescos, blast-proof wire cages filled with rubble, topped with corrugated iron and sandbags. But Dwyer’s remote location means it has been the target of attacks only a handful of times.

By contrast, Delhi - where Harry was sent within days of his arrival - sits right on the front line. Troops look out across 500 yards of noman’s land to the Taliban lines. The camp comes under attack several times a day by rocket-propelled grenades, mortar and machine-gun fire. There is no running water. The showers are simply a bag hung up in an outdoor wooden cubicle. Harry shared a room with a constantly changing contingent of artillery troops.

The prince said: “This is what it is all about, being here with the guys rather than in a room with a bunch of officers. It’s good fun to be with just a normal bunch of guys, listening to their problems, listening to what they think. And especially getting through every day. You are doing a job, to be with such fantastic people, the Gurkhas and the guys I share with, makes it worthwhile.”

Harry’s boss at Delhi, Major Mark Milford, was asked if the base was a safe place for a prince. He replied matter-offactly: “No, not really.” But despite all the dangers, Harry insisted he is enjoying the isolation. He said: “It’s very nice to be out of touch from everything. You’re miles away from everybody, miles away from everything.”

Alexia and Carlos, who married in a London ceremony in 1999, introduced their new daughter to the world on Wednesday with the help of their three other children.

Four-day-old Amelia made an angelic impression as she slept peacefully in her mum’s arms. Her architect and champion yachtsman dad meanwhile looked after the new arrival’s two-year-old brother Carlos.

Sleeping peacefully in her mother’s arms, the newest member of the Greek Royal Family made her debut on Wednesday. Little Amelia left the Spanish clinic where she was born on October 26 with her parents, Princess Alexia of Greece and Spaniard Carlos Morales Quintana, and three young siblings by her side.

Arrietta, five, Ana Maria, four, and two-year-old Carlos, who had also made their entrance into the world at Barcelona’s Teknon Clinic, will no doubt be looking forward to welcoming their new sister back at the family home in Lanzarote.

Amelia won’t realise it yet, but she belongs to one of the best-connected families in Europe. Her maternal grandparents are former-King Constantine and Queen Anna-Maria of Greece, who’s also a member of the Danish Royal Family. Princess Alexia, 42, recently became godmother to Denmark’s newest princess, Isabella, daughter of Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary.

  Britain’s Prince William visits Royal Navy family members based in Helensburgh Scotland, on October 19 2007.

  Britain’s Prince William smiles while visiting Royal Navy family members based in Helensburgh Scotland October 19 2007.

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.

Avalon Productions presents Jim Tavare at the Guildhall Arts Centre in Grantham on Friday, September 28, at 7.30pm.

This brilliant comic blends witty jokes with deadpan delivery and more bizarrely, a double bass, in this madcap one-man show. Hugely successful as a live performer, Jim has built up a loyal fan base across the country with his special brand of humour, including some blue blooded ones.

After several appearances at the Royal Variety Performance, Prince Charles invited Jim to perform at a private party at Highgrove before the Queen and 13 heads of state for the King of Greece’s birthday, so if you fancy seeing Jim perform you’re certainly in good company. Hailed by the Independent as “the natural heir to the Tommy Cooper Fez”, you’d be mad to miss him!

Tickets cost £12 each (concessions £10) and are available from the box office on telephone number 01476 406158.