Revealed: The British squaddie who survived the Somme to marry a Russian princess

She was a princess from a distant quarter of the Russian empire, buried decades ago in an unmarked grave.

He was the handsome young veteran of the Somme from a poor family in Yorkshire, forbidden to speak of his love for her.

Now the extraordinary love story of Helena Palavandova and Lendon Payne, their brief marriage and its tragic ending, has been brought to light by Mr Payne's descendants.

The couple met in 1923 while Mr Payne was serving in Constantinople and, despite their very different backgrounds, fell in love.

After they married they moved to the less glamorous surroundings of inner-city Leeds.

A year after giving birth to their first child, the princess died of tuberculosis.

Her widower was forbidden to speak about her by his jealous second wife and her grave went unmarked.

But after researching the story, several of Mr Payne's descendants arranged for the princess to have a proper headstone and this week held a memorial service in her honour at her grave at the city's Harehills Cemetery.

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"We don't know much about this poor woman, only that she died far away from her home country," said Mr Payne's granddaughter Kathe Deutsch.

"We felt it was important to make a small gesture to commemorate Princess Helena and mark the place where she is buried."

Born in Georgia in 1898, Helena was one of the Palavandoff family. She was eight when a peasant mob stormed the family mansion, killing her mother. Her father Prince Palavandoff and Helena fled the country at the beginning of the Russian Revolution in 1917.

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She ended up as a student in Constantinople where she met Mr Payne, a soldier from the Royal Corps of Signals and veteran of the Western Front who was helping train the anti-Soviet Cossacks.

His daughter Mary Deutsch said: "He was a very good-looking man. He liked the ladies."

The couple communicated in French. But Mr Payne was also a man of few words and it was only when he asked his senior officers for permission to marry that he was told that Helena was a "princess of rank".

Mrs Deutsch went on: "He tried to extricate himself from his promise because he could not provide the lifestyle that she would expect. She was having none of this."

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They married on May 24, 1923 at the British Embassy in Constantinople and nine months later their son David was born.

By this time Mr Payne had been posted back to the UK and the newlyweds moved in with his mother, a music-hall singer and dancer, in Leeds.

The young woman who had become accustomed to the finer things in life was suddenly having to cope on a soldier's wage.

"Like all married women of the time she was expected to manage a weekly household budget," said Mrs Deutsch.

"Being completely unused to handling money she quickly found her new life very difficult to cope with."

Under strain and unhappy, she fell ill and died on March 18 1925 at the age of 27. Their son David was looked after by his grandmother.

He died four years ago aged 80. Mr Payne stayed in the Army, reaching the rank of sergeant major. He remarried and had a daughter and four sons, one of whom, John Payne, attended the graveside ceremony.

Only after the death of his second wife did he speak of the princess. He died in 1985 aged 88.

Mrs Deutsch said: "He was a man who never spoke freely about his feelings but I think there was always a place in his heart for her."