Dahl’s grandson puts fairytale wedding on ice

RESTAURATEUR Raymond Blanc, who has been forced to close some restaurants in his Brasserie Blanc chain, is determined to keep his flagship restaurant and hotel, the two Michelin-starred Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire, open. ‘We are fighting like everyone else’ he told me yesterday. ‘The Manoir has been hit but not as hard as some. We have bookings and have spaced out all the tables and always had the highest standards of hygiene.’ He hopes the closures of his other eateries will be shortlived. ‘Hopefully it would be closure for two or three months — and then a relaunch,’ he added.

The wedding of Princess Beatrice is not the only royal nuptials that have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

The grandson of one of the 20th century’s most brilliant children’s writers, Roald Dahl, was due to wed the youngest daughter of the late King hussein and Queen Noor of Jordan in April — but it has been postponed until October.

Journalist Ned Donovan, 26, who is the son of Tessa Dahl and half-brother of model and writer Sophie Dahl, met Princess Raiyah Bint al hussein, 33, in India two years ago. Their engagement last November was announced by the Royal hashemite Court in Amman.

‘We were so looking forward to having you all here in April,’ Donovan has informed guests, ‘but Raiyah and I, along with our families, have decided to postpone the planned celebration and tour here in Jordan till later this year.

‘We want to be with as many of you as possible, but also not have our wedding turned into a “vector” for this virus, and potentially harm anyone’s health.’

Ned, who has now relocated to Jordan, has been getting shipshape for his impending nuptials and has chosen to be called Faris — meaning knight or cavalier in Arabic — as he says Ned isn’t a very common name. Princess Raiyah 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.