Sandie Merrick

Sandie found romance with Andy Longthorn in 1982. Their love blossomed but soon stopped being as beautiful. Andy could not compete when Sandie was swept off her feet by agricultural student David Blackmore, who arrived in Beckindale in his flash car to help Joe at NY Estates. Then she switched her attentions to unemployed Graham Jelks, a keen mechanic who was a friend of her brother Jackie and Seth Armstrong's son, Fred.

[edit] Teenage Pregnancy

When Sandie announced she was pregnant and refused to reveal who the father was, Dolly Skilbeck gave her the support she needed. Only later was it discovered that Dolly herself had given birth to an illegitimate son years earlier. The father of Sandie's baby was, in fact, her former schoolfriend Andy Longthorn, who had left the village to go to university. After deciding to continue with the pregnancy, and finding her mother, Pat Sugden, unsympathetic, Sandie travelled to Aberdeen, where her father, Tom, was working on the oil rigs, and baby Louise was born there, away from the wagging tongues of Beckindale. But Sandie decided to put Louise up for adoption to her mother's disapprovel and tried to build her life up again.

[edit] Affair with Phil

There was more friction when builder Phil Pearce left his wife, Lesley, and young daughter, Diane, to move with Sandie into Mill cottage The Mill had been converted into a flat by the company that Phil had just formed with Joe Sugden. Phil and Sandie stared an affair which was unveiled by Diane when she found out, to an packed audience in The Woolpack. Sandie's affair caused another village scandal, and Annie Sugden made clear her disapproval.

[edit] Later Years

When Sandie subsequently passed her auctioncer's exams and took over Pollard's job, he mounted a hate campaign against her. It culminated in him breaking into the mill conversion she shared with Phil Pearce and drunkenly threatening her with a poker. Matters only worsened for Sandie when NY Estates decided to close Hotten Market and pull out of Beckindale altogether and she lost her job. Pollard meanwhile made a play for Dolly Skilbeck. Sandie left the village to live in Scotland with her father after Jackie was killed.