Personality 


Buckinghamshire, so it was not by choice that I came to live in Kent.


“My grandmother was born and


brought up in Middle Street, Deal, and references to the Pettit family are found all over the surrounding countryside. A beautiful Elizabethan farmhouse at Coldred was a family home in 1652.”


So would she consider husband number six?


She says brightly: “I would like to think there was someone out there, but the opportunities recede as one ages. Most men want a younger woman and I think my profile would put off all but the brave!


“Living where I do is not conducive


to meeting unattached men and I lost my large circle of friends and acquaintances when I moved to Kent 20 years ago. And now, sadly, many of my local friends have died so the social circle is getting smaller and smaller.


“I doubt very much that I would marry


ever female newsreader. Back in Britain, she got the chance to


present Pebble Mill at One, the forerunner of the daytime magazine format which exists today. Omar Sharif, Jackie and Joan Collins, Frank Finlay and Gina Fratini are among those she feels lucky to have met and interviewed.


She then joined the news team at the


BBC – twice winning newsreader of the year – and after she left, remained in demand in the corporate sector, for voice overs, narrations, writing and presenting. Being allied to charitable or worthwhile causes has always loomed large in her life.


And work and the work ethic has been an important – and defining – part of Jan’s make-up.


She says: “I’m very fortunate in that


work has come to me at a time when I truly believed I would be long retired.


“I have worked since I was 17 and not to work is anathema to me. And, if I


“I love history and visiting National Trust and English Heritage properties. I’m relatively artistic and have had a go at many things such as Adult Education jewellery making classes, have painted in watercolour and used to love doing cross-stitch. I like being creative and making things. I also love harp and guitar music, travel and going to the theatre.”


again and, indeed, had I been born decades later than I was, I would not have married but would have had relationships. So much has changed in today’s world. People do things back to front – they live together, have the children, and then might think of marriage.


“I have learned to my cost the old adage ‘Marry in haste and repent at leisure’. I am not an ideal person to ask for advice, but I would suggest that a couple need to be friends as well as lovers, because passion seldom lasts forever and you need friendship to keep you together.


“At my age, keeping healthy and


active is of prime concern.” Jan was born in Dartford, but moved


to Australia in the early 1960s, where after a spell in theatre she broke the mould to become the country’s first


haven’t got paid work, I will do voluntary work such as being an assistant at Canterbury Cathedral. I have to keep busy.”


These days, requests for services


come in quite regularly, but she still keeps active on days off by walking her six-year-old Papillon – a Battersea rescue dog – which gets her out of the house.


Jan says: “I now drive a Ford Fiesta


because it is sufficient for my needs; is an economic car to run; and I am well


looked after by Malcolm Waite Cars in Sandwich.


“I always had sports cars up until the


last few years, when economy demanded that I bought a good reliable workhorse. You have to think of insurance and running costs and so on.”


Jan was clearly enchanted by India in the “Marigold” experience. Could she live there?


“I’ve done more reflection since I’ve been back, but what I did think about a great deal was how kind, gentle and respectful the Indian people who we met were. They appeared to be a lot less materialistic than Westerners, and they have respect for religion.


“I would seriously consider spending the Indian winter months in India. Much as I love heat, the summer temperatures and humidity are just a trifle too much for me. I would spend my time exploring the fascinating history, religion and perhaps helping out with spoken English in a school.


“On my father’s side there is Indian DNA – his family went out to India in 1750 at the time of Clive of India but I know very little about his family tree.”


Jan has an intriguing family history – a distant tie to Eleanor of Acquitaine. She explains: “If the research is correct – and it wasn’t undertaken by me but


by distant relatives – on my grandmother’s side I’m a 26 times removed great grand-daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who is one of my heroines.


“An illegitimate daughter of King John married a Sir John Pettit from whom I’m descended.”


Mid Kent Living 7


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