Janet Shepherd

Janet Shepherd CHAIRMAN
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(click here for a profile of Janet Shepherd)

(click here for a profile of Janet Shepherd) Egyptology UK - home of the Sussex Egyptology Society online
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Janet Shepherd, SES Chairman

When you ask Janet how she describes her role as chairman, her answer is very simple - but it reveals quite a lot about her level of commitment to the society: "It's a major part of my life", she laughs.

Such a single-minded attitude is an important asset for any volunteer running a special-interest association. It is an attitude Janet has possessed from an early age, ever since she decided, unusually for a Sixties schoolgirl, that she wanted to go to sea...

Janet's interest in Ancient Egypt was sparked off by a Mediterranean cruise she went on at the age of 15, organised by her school (Davison High School for Girls, where the society holds its Worthing lecture meetings). Athens and Pompeii paled in comparison with the Pyramids and the treasures of Tutankhamun in the Cairo Museum: "I forgot all about the Romans and the Greeks after that".

That same trip gave Janet a strong taste for travel, and in the mid-Seventies "I became a Dutch seaman", she reveals, joining a Rotterdam-based cruise line as an onboard shop sales assistant. "I had friends who joined the Wrens, but they only got as far as Scotland and Portsmouth, and I thought 'that's not good enough'!"

She visited Egypt again and again during her 18 months at sea ("We were the first boat through the Suez Canal after the Seven-Day War"), in among many other destinations around the world. Her seafaring career nearly came to a sudden end when her ship was once swamped by a tidal wave off Casablanca.

Several subsequent trips to Egypt cemented Janet's interest in, and love of, the country. Paradoxically, the one time she could not visit it was in the early 1980s, when she lived for four years in neighbouring Libya and diplomatic tensions had closed the border. Janet became Chairman at the AGM in 1998. Today the society's health is "better than ever", says Janet. "We've got more members than we've ever had before - more than 300 fully paid-up members. The lecturers all seem to know who we are, lots of people have heard of us, and the word has spread".

Janet sees her role as "promoting the society and being there for the members.
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Looking to the future, Janet feels it is important to keep the society's personal touch, in order to maintain and increase the membership.

Barry Kemp and Janet Shepherd July 2008
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Photo: Barry Kemp and SES chairman Janet Shepherd with the £1,000 cheque for the Amarna Trust.

Janet Shepherd, SES Chairman