After 30 Years Apart, Brother and Sister Reunite on Bizarre Blind Date
Mar 28, 2011 – 2:33 PM

You should always be cautious on a blind date, and here's why.

After connecting through an Internet dating service, two anonymous love seekers realized they were in fact estranged siblings when they finally met face to face last week.

Sarah Kemp, a cleaner living in Edinburgh, Scotland, and George Bentley, a London-based builder, began a correspondence through ForgetDinner.co.uk last November. After several months emailing back and forth, the pair -- brother and sister, that is -- eventually chose to "bite the bullet" and unite in person.

"I would never have agreed to go to London on a blind date, but we hit it off from the beginning, and our relationship blossomed as we emailed each other more and more often," Kemp told Scotland's Daily Record.

Sarah Kemp and George Bentley had to accept not being soul mates when a meeting facilitated by an Internet dating service revealed they are actually brother and sister.
After about an hour of conversation at the White Horse, Bentley's favorite East Ham pub, the two would-be lovers realized they were actually siblings.

"To meet your long-lost brother, in a bar, after over 30 years would be something by itself," Kemp said. "But to meet him in those circumstances -- on a date, for crying out loud -- really is something else. We obviously had far more in common than first thought."

Kemp, 42, and Bentley, 47, grew up together until their parents, Felicity and David Bentley, divorced in 1975. Kemp moved with her mother to Edinburgh, while Bentley stayed with his father.

To complicate matters further, in 1989 Kemp married, only to divorce a year later. She kept her ex-husband's surname, Kemp, making Bentley's search for a Sarah Bentley futile.

"I had absolutely no idea where she was," he said. "I was also searching for Sarah Bentleys, rather than Sarah Kemps, as I obviously didn't know she married. After a while, I think both Sarah and I gave up looking."