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Sandie in Southend circa 1975.

I began singing and playing guitar around age 14 and started singing in local folk evenings at pubs in the Southend area I used to get around to night clubs and pubs to sing and play guitar from age 16.This band were playing at a Westcliffe Hotel and I sat in for a few songs

Aurora

Sandie with "Mole"(banjo, guitar) Mike (guitar vocals) and Nick (guitar vocals).We formed Aurora in late 1976 when I was living in Ealing West London. We wrote a lot of our own material as well as playing jazz and blues standards, and most of our work was in London pubs and colleges.

Meridian

Publicity photo for Meridian

left to right Andrew” fingers" Flack(keyboards and backing vocals) Barry Goacher (drums and backing vocals) Sandie (vocals) Peter Brent (bass and vocals) and Ronnie "Rotten” Collins (vocals).

Eastbourne carnival July 4th 1979 Sandie and "The Merries" on the Kings float.

1979 With the" Baron Knights" show band at the opening of the new swimming pool at Ray Kings Glyndley Manor, Stone Cross nr.Eastbourne

Thursday 27th July 1978. Prince Charles with Ray King

Kings programes and their advertisement in the" Stage" newspaper asking for a female vocalist .I auditioned on 27th April 1978 and started work as vocalist with the resident band Meridian on 10th May. On being given the job I was assured that I would be staying in one of the resident bungalows on site, but on the day I arrived I was shown to a grotty old caravan with no bathroom and told that this was to be my accommodation’s then went straight to the office and verbally abused the guy who had hired me and told him that I would not be staying if that’s how I was going to be treated, and they then" found" they had a bungalow free which I could stay in. I really expected to be told to leave after confronting them in this way but the staff were all very nice to me after that and I went on to spend nearly 2 very happy years at Kings , and I learnt a lot from working alongside many famous entertainers of the day. My time there also enabled me to obtain the much longed for Equity card which I received in September 1978.

One of the brochures for Kings Country Club. Charlie Case the resident compere became a good friend and when I left Kings at the end of 1979 it was 21 years before we met up again in Hastings...Ray and i were walking along a Hastings street when a car screeched to a stop opposite us and a manic clown in full make up came running after us waving his arms and calling our names,we thought it must be candid camera untill the clown revealed himself to be Charlie.Charlie has been a professional clown for many years and still lives in Bexhill, we had a lot of catching up to do after so many years and when Ray and I moved back to Portugal in 2002 we promised to keep in touch this time.

The frontage of the 1200 seater nightclub complex at Kings Country Club 1978

Kings being demolished circa 1985 to make way for a housing estate.

Official brochure for the Royal Charity evening.

In 1974 I was asked by a local photographer to do some modelling.These are some of his photos.

When I was 15 I joined a Saturday drama group held at the Southend College and when I left school I went on to become a full time drama student. The above photo was a Southend drama festival which was not well attended and received a panning for the poor quality of the performances. The play was called Anno Domine written by drama teacher Charlie Sharman- Cox (.I am right at the back, you can see my forehead if you look closely!)

The 2nd picture taken 1974 when I appeared in a Harold Pinter play called "Black Comedy".

publicity photo taken at Glyndley Manor Hotel nr Eastbourne 1979

The cast of the Jimmy Jones Spectacular January 1979 which featured singer Rita Philips, impressionist Tony Maiden dance troupe The Lovers with music by Meridian.Compere was Charlie Case

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Me as" Rosa Luxemburg" a nightclub singer in pre war Germany . Play was entitled Kampf and Cabaret and performed at Stratford in September1977.At drama school I was an aspiring actress but I always got the singing jobs so that is the direction my "career "headed towards. I auditioned at this time for the new musical "Evita"at the Palace Theatre London where I was one of many hopefuls trying out for the lead roll( which of course went to Elaine Page and who I saw in the opening production and she was superb)Andrew Lloyd Webber was at the audition as was Cameron Macintosh’s also auditioned for a part in the musical" God spell "and was offered a roll in it, but they wouldn’t take me on as I wasn’t a member of the actors union Equity which was very upsetting at the time. In those days to become a member you had to provide proof of 40 weeks professional work, but the "catch 22" was that you couldn’t get work unless you had an Equity card. I later obtained my Equity card when I was working at Kings Country Club Eastbourne.Up until that time my "stage "name was Sandra Bruce, but Equity already had a member going by that name so I changed it to Sandra Croft (much easier to remember than Hickling)

Me with the "Merries" on the Jimmy Jones Spectacular on which show we performed a selection of songs from the "new” hit musical "Grease".

Me and Ronnie Collins who joined the Merries in 1979 as vocalist.

I was asked to model the new "strip" for Bexhill football club and the team was invited to the nightclub where I wore the new strip onstage that night which went down well with the team.