Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
The golden age of rock and roll
Couple who met at gig celebrate 50 years together
A couple who met at a rock and roll gig in Thanington in the 1960s now have their own gold disc as Derrick and Rosemary Kennett are celebrating 50 happy years of marriage.
The couple, who have lived in Chilham ever since, marked the anniversary last Saturday with a lunchtime party for family and friends at the village’s Woolpack Hotel.
Mr Kennett said: “Back when we were teenagers, my friends and I used to ride our motorbikes to the Ashford Road Social Club in Thanington on Friday evenings.
“We would watch bands playing rock and roll music that was all the rage at the time. I met Rosemary there on January 11 in 1963, right in the middle of one of the coldest winters on record.
“At the end of the evening, I asked if I could walk her home and we agreed to meet the following Sunday. I was late, but, fortunately, she was still waiting for me, and that’s how it all began.
“With the help of a pal at college, who was looking for a drummer for a new band, I learned to play the drums and we went on to form a group called Blues Incorporated.
“We travelled all around Kent in an old blue Bedford van playing local venues, accompanied by Rosemary and the other girlfriends of the band.”
The couple married at Harbledown Church on June 17, 1967, and following the reception at St Mildred’s Church Hall in Wincheap left for their honeymoon in Great Yarmouth in their Morris Traveller.
They have two daughters – Joanna Brivio and Victoria Johnson, three grandsons and one granddaughter.
Mrs Kennett worked on a fruit farm when the children were tod- dlers, then at C&A in Canterbury and finally as a receptionist at Chartham doctors’ surgery.
She now volunteers in the community, helping with the senior’s lunch club and flower arranging, cleaning and organising coffee mornings for the church. Mr Kennett was a carpenter and decorator and also served as a retained firefighter in Chilham for 23 years, after which he was a parish councillor for 16.
He now enjoys gardening, helping to maintain the village flower tubs and writing the monthly nature notes for the parish magazine.