{"id":1942,"date":"2017-02-10T09:46:16","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T09:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/?p=1942"},"modified":"2017-02-10T10:07:14","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T10:07:14","slug":"love-at-kent-janet-jackson-and-stewart-kempster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/2017\/02\/10\/love-at-kent-janet-jackson-and-stewart-kempster\/","title":{"rendered":"Love at Kent – Janet Jackson and Stewart Kempster"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
A celebration of the Engagement of Janet Jackson and Stewart Kempster on Graduation Day, 12 July 1968. Photograph taken before the Graduation Ball (which accounts for the non-standard student clothing) behind what is now the Mandela Building. From left to right: Roger Mitchell, Politics & Government, Eliot Graham Austin, Economic & Social History, Rutherford Caroline Green, Mathematics, Eliot John Platt, Economics, Rutherford Marilyn Platt (n\u00e9e Palmer), Sociology, Eliot Paul Jordan, Physics, Eliot Jill Jordan (n\u00e9e Sharman), Economic & social History, Eliot Janet Kempster (n\u00e9e Jackson), Head Housekeeper, Eliot Stewart Kempster, Mathematics, Eliot David Mogg\u2019s Guest David Mogg, Chemistry, Eliot Carmela Green, Richard Hackworth\u2019s Guest Richard Hackworth, Mathematics, Eliot Ann Thurman (n\u00e9e Pearce), Matron, Eliot John Thurman, Postgraduate Chemistry, Eliot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was January 1968 and student Stewart Kempster had arranged the visit of the BBC to record UKC\u2019s participation in the radio quiz programme \u2018Third Degree\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 Things did not go well as a bomb warning was received whilst the recording was being made.\u00a0\u00a0 Everything stopped and the area around Eliot College Common Room, where the event was being held, was cleared.\u00a0\u00a0 The college staff were involved in the evacuation too, and, when all was back to normal, he was invited back by the Head Housekeeper, Jan Jackson, to her flat (now part of the Mandela Building) for coffee.\u00a0\u00a0 And that\u2019s where and when it all started.<\/p>\n

Jan\u2019s flat proved the ideal place for preparing for the Mathematics finals and meant that, despite lodging in Whitstable, he now had a bolthole on campus with the benefits of domestic assistance and preferential dining as Jan was responsible for many things including food service.\u00a0 (The effects are still visible in Stewart\u2019s silhouette!)<\/p>\n

Graduation Day was the next step forward as it was then that they were engaged.\u00a0\u00a0 A Sherry Party (don\u2019t forget this was 1968) was held for a number of friends on the grass outside the flat to celebrate their engagement before everyone joined the other main event of the night, the Graduation Ball.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They were married in 1970 and have a son and daughter and three granddaughters.\u00a0 Apart from a two-year posting to the USA, they have lived in Kent since getting married, and are working hard to reduce the length of their bucket list.<\/p>\n

So not all relationships formed at the University have been between students, and it is interesting to note that John Thurman who was researching his doctorate in chemistry married Ann Pearce who was Eliot College Matron;\u00a0 both are in the photograph.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was January 1968 and student Stewart Kempster had arranged the visit of the BBC to record UKC\u2019s participation in the radio quiz programme \u2018Third … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34788,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[118124,118136],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34788"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1942"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1947,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1942\/revisions\/1947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/development\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}