Extraordinary
SANDRA was a selfless and compassionate woman who did a lot to improve life for people in her home town of Liverpool. One of her proudest moments was to be named Citizen of the Year by the Merseyside Police Federation in 2003. Two years later, she was chuffed to be one of a group of local ladies celebrated as Merseyside Women Who Make a Difference and presented with a certificate from another lady from the area, Cherie Blair. She truly deserved these honours, as a humanitarian, a great organiser and an all-round super woman. Yet she first had to overcome an early life marked by tragedy. She was only 12 when her mother fell ill and died. Her father, a travelling salesman, was often away and wasn’t much of a parent. So Sandra and her brother were farmed out to relatives. She was very bright and did well at school — even becoming a prefect — and would have gone on to college, but it wasn’t an option. So she began working for the buyers at Freemans department store on Wavertree Road. That’s where we met, in 1963, because I was a sales assistant there. She was only 17 and I was 30. Six years later
we married and our son Jonathan was born the following year. When Sandra got a job as manageress of a launderette on Derby Lane, we moved into the flat above it and remained there for the next 30-odd years. It was at the launderette that Sandra began to make a mark on the community. Because she was intelligent, gregarious and helpful, it became a kind of information centre for locals. People would go there to ask Sandra for advice, as she knew how to solve problems. She served for years as non-executive director at the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, as well as on the boards of business organisations. But perhaps her most lasting legacy is Doric Park, in the Old Swan area of Liverpool. It had been a rubbish-strewn wasteland frequented by drunken youths and vandals. In the early 2000s, Sandra helped create a foundation to reclaim it. They campaigned for and received a grant, and within a few years it was transformed into a lovely park with sports facilities and play areas, footpaths and seating, decorative walls and gates. Last October, as we were attending a wedding in Menorca, Sandra fell and knocked her head on the ground. We took her to hospital but she never regained consciousness, and died the next day. Jonathan flew out to the island and together we brought her home. After meeting Sandra, you never forgot her. She was a woman of high calibre, and my best friend.