A WIDOW with Parkinson’s disease who vowed to make her charity event a roaring success following the death of her husband has raised more than £6,000.
Sandra and John Salisbury were planning a charity auction in aid of Parkinson’s UK with items donated by the likes of Mike Tindall, Katherine Kelly and Dickie Bird.
But John died suddenly in July after a short illness, leaving Sandra, his wife of 25 years, devastated.
Sandra vowed to make her ‘Yorkshire at it’s Best’ charity auction a success, and raised a total of £6,152.
She said: “It was a brilliant night, John would have absolutely loved it.
“Janine Dyer came and sang a song and her husband Bruce came, John was a Barnsley fan and would have loved that.
“Neil Richardson, the artist, did a painting of famous people queuing outside Percy Turner’s at Jump which is famous for its pork pies and he put my John at the end of the queue.
“It was a really lovely atmosphere and I was more than happy with the amount we raised.”
Sandra said between three and four hundred people attended John’s funeral, at which donations were made totalling £800. The money was donated to the Royal British Legion.
To mark John’s birthday which was on November 5, a poppy waterfall was made and placed on a bench he regularly sat on in the couple’s garden.
She added: “Family and close friends got together and I decided I wanted to do something with poppies as all the donations from John’s funeral went to our local Royal British Legion at Churchfields.
“The bench is covered in a waterfall of poppies and is usually by John’s pond in the garden. Most of the poppies have been made by family, friends and my granddaughter Elora’s school, Oakhill Primary. She misses her granddad so much, but her little face when she fetched a box full of poppies which she said her friends had made especially for her granddad, she was so proud.”
Sandra, 52, of St David’s Drive, Ardsley, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s about three-and-a-half years ago. She was forced to give up driving after suffering a blackout which led to a crash, and had to give up her job as a call centre worker. Parkinson’s UK is a charity close to her heart and she has organised many fundraisers for the local and national branches.
