Word: tony
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Relief from Cares. In the three weeks since Hussein's surprise engagement announcement, his Cabinet and the strong-minded Queen Mother Zain had tried hard to talk him out of the idea. Not that anybody objected to the girl personally. At 20, Toni Avril Gardiner is modestly pretty, modestly sized (4 in. shorter than Hussein's 5 ft. 6 in.), modestly educated (like Hussein, she never went to college)-in many ways a better match than Hussein's first wife, Queen Dina, who was taller, seven years older, and holder of an M.A. from Cambridge. Hussein...
...Arabs ever since Winston Churchill created Jordan after World War I and handed it to the Hashemites. Hussein's Cabinet and Queen Zain flatly refused to okay the marriage. Stubbornly, a smitten Hussein threatened to abdicate in favor of his neurotic younger brother Mohammed. The Cabinet preferred even Toni to Mohammed, but still threatened to resign if the marriage went through. Finally Hussein made a concession: his bride would not be Queen, but "shall be called Muna al Hussein [the wish of Hussein], with no title or position." Gratefully, Premier Bahjat Talhouni declared that his soul was filled with...
...ceremony itself was simple. In a salon at his mother's modest palace, Hussein and Toni (who has been converted to the Moslem faith) said their vows, signed five copies of the wedding contract, exchanged rings, and then everybody in the room shouted "Mabrouk!" (good luck). With his bride at his side, Hussein drove through Amman's streets in a cream-colored Mercedes to take the cheers of most of the city's population. That night the couple retired to one of Hussein's palaces, Basman, where they had the company of two pet lions...
...cause of the furor is 20-year-old, blue-eyed, chestnut-haired Toni Avril Gardiner. Granddaughter of a shepherd and daughter of an army officer, Toni was born in Suffolk, educated in Anglican schools in England except for a three-year sojourn in Malaya (1955-58), when her father put in a stint in Kuala Lumpur. After finishing high school, Toni went to work as a payroll clerk for London's Peak Engineering Co. But, as one company official tactfully explained, "her calculations were rather erratic," and she ended up on the telephone switchboard...
...take some of the edge off the unorthodox marriage, Toni last month embraced the Moslem faith, has begun studying Arabic. Hussein also gave her an Arab name, Muna al Hussein-the Wish of Hussein. Radio Cairo and Radio Baghdad have thus far studiously avoided reporting the news of the engagement, but Cairo's Al Akhbar was less polite. "The engagement will lead to an acute crisis in Jordan, and a loss of popularity for Hussein in the Arab world. His engagement to a British girl shows Hussein is searching for a warmth and affection he did not find...