Roald Dahl’s grandson plans fairytale wedding to a real-life princess

HERE’S a tale of the unexpected. The grandson of one of the 20th century’s most brilliant children’s writers, Roald Dahl, has got engaged to the youngest daughter of the late King Hussein and Queen Noor of Jordan.

‘We met in India last year, which is also where we got engaged last month,’ says Ned Donovan, who is the son of Tessa Dahl and halfbrother of model and writer Sophie Dahl. ‘ They’re a wonderful couple,’ Ned’s father, legendary boulevardier Patrick Donovan, tells me. ‘A great couple — perfectly suited.’

Journalist Ned (far right), who is currently living in India, is due to move to Jordan at the end of the year and has been getting shipshape for his impending nuptials. He has chosen to be called Faris — meaning knight or cavalier in Arabic — as Ned isn’t a very common name. The engagement was announced by the Royal Hashemite Court in Amman and the groom is celebrating with an engagement party in London next month.

Princess Raiyah Bint al Hussein, 33 (far left), speaks four languages and holds degrees in Japanese studies from Edinburgh University and Columbia in New York and is now studying for a PhD in Asian languages and cultures in LA.

Her American-born mother Queen Noor was King Hussein’s fourth wife and converted to Islam when she married him in 1978.

Hussein, who died in 1999, would have approved of his prospective son-in-law. The late king, a great Anglophile, went to Harrow School and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.