Sandra Lesley Jenkinson (19 Apr 1955 - 16 Mar 2020)

Sandra (Sand or S) was born in Stepney hospital and lived with her parents James (Jim) & Alice in Dagenham. She was later joined by a younger brother Michael (Micky). She had a very happy childhood living very close to her Nan, Aunt, Uncle & cousins of the same age.

Sandra was not academic and certainly not sporty although she would learn to tolerate quite a lot of sport with me later in life. She left school at 16 and secured a job in the city with a major bank in the foreign exchange department. She loved the city life and in particular, the social side with many “liquid lunches”.

During that time she met her first husband and moved to Hockley. At this time Sandra took a job as an accounts clerk with a company called Cadogan Investments in 1982 where I was Sales Manager for one of 2 divisions within the business. I was also married but our friendship grew very quickly into something special. Although this was very difficult on both sides of the family and friends we soon realised that we were very much in love and wanted to be together. In September 1984 we moved into a rented flat in Lovelace Gardens, Southchurch. Although this was a very happy time in many ways, divorce is not easy, even with no children and Sandra in particular had a tough time dealing with the fallout caused. Once the divorce was finalised we moved into our house of 22 years in Fermoy Road, Thorpe Bay in 1985. This was closely followed by us getting married in 1986 and the birth of our first daughter Lucy in 1987 and then Elizabeth (Lizzie) in 1989.

Once we had the children Sandra did not want to go back to work and wanted to be with them as they grew and developed. We were lucky to be able to this and she soon got into the “baby group culture”. This was a great support for me as all my jobs involved me spending quite a lot of days / weeks away from home although also mixed with days working from home as well. Both the girls will admit that Sandra was a “pushover” as a mum but she always made sure that she took them to every activity and event possible. It was always nice for her that as the girls got older they would always bring their friends to the house as a meeting place and our dining room used to be “party central” for teenagers. Her view was that it was always better in our house than out on street corners or parks. I am pleased to say that many of these friends still remember these times with great affection. These were very happy years for both of us with many fantastic family holidays. For Sandra family was everything and was always happy to be involved in anything the girls and I were involved in. She was also close to her brother Micky and his family which were the same age and always enjoyed our days together.

Apart from a brief period in 2000/1 when we decided to put Lizzie into Thorpe Hall private school Sandra did not work again. To help support the costs she worked part time for Waitrose & then M&S for a year but later she did help and support me when I decided to start my own business in 2003. Although this was quite a risk at the time Sandra never questioned the decision and in the early stages was always there to help with packing products and chasing outstanding debts (she was very good at this).

Lucy had already left home to go to university and when Lizzie did the same in 2003 we decided to move to our current house in Benfleet so that it would reduce my travel time as I was driving in excess of 50,000 miles a year for the business. This was a big wrench for Sandra having spent all our life together in the Thorpe Bay house. Even though very happy in the new Benfleet house we still talked about moving back to Thorpe Bay at some time in the future.

Sandra was always a very happy and bubbly person so it will be a surprise to many that she suffered from a serious depressive mental illness for 30 years. She always wanted to keep this as private as possible as it was impossible to explain these feelings. We were very lucky to find a consultant psychiatrist in Adrian Winbow who was there for Sandra over all of this time and became a good friend to both of us. She took a wide range of drugs every day to keep her feelings under control and for the most part this worked well for her. These however did take their toll by way of affecting her appetite, weight and eventually damaging her kidneys. I am sure that people always thought of Sandra as a bit “scatty” and we both used to make light of it but in reality with the amount of drugs (some of them controlled) that she took it was amazing she could stand up! Despite all of this she never complained about her situation and got on with life as best she could. It is likely that this kidney damage lowered her resistance to COVID19 which bought about her very premature death.

Although Sandra had her “fiery” side if you upset her, she was always a happy and friendly person who would do anything for her family, which meant everything to her. It is sad that she now will not be at Lucy’s wedding to Richard (Rich) due to take place on the 4th of April but now cancelled. She was so looking forward to this day and also looking forward to the same for Lizzie and Chris in the future. She never stopped talking about possible grandchildren and was waiting for this day to arrive in the future.

I am very pleased that we took the decision to retire in 2018 and this enabled us to have 18 months of fantastic holidays together. This started with a family holiday in Marbella, followed by a cruise to the Canaries, Australia & New Zealand, Nashville / Memphis / New Orleans with our friends Ann & Trevor, Tenerife and finally a Christmas / NY cruise in the Caribbean with the girls and partners Rich & Chris. She was taken too soon but if it had to be this was a perfect way to finish 35 happy years together.

I have lost a wonderful wife and the girls a fantastic mum. We will miss her enormously.