TERRY HALL dropped his horse business to care for his wife when she was paralysed after an accident. BARRY ELLAMS reports on why his daughter Charlotte thinks he is a community champion.

HORSES run through the blood of the Hall family. They are as passionate about the equestrian life as any family in Cheshire.

It was horses that bought Jan and Terry together. As employees on the Marquess of Cholmondeley estate, they met and married 27 years ago.

After some years Terry and Jan set up their own business, Castle Stud and Livery Stables, with 32 horses. They lived in a cottage and daughter Charlotte went to Harthill Primary School and pursued her love of horse riding.

Their idyllic life was turned upside down seven years ago when Jane sustained a brain haemorrhage after banging her head in a horse trailer.

Terry said: 'We were at a tournament. The partition in the horse trailer swung across and hit her on her head - it was a hell of a bang.'

The 'nasty knock' which Jan played down led to an aneurysm - bleeding on the brain - and strokes that paralysed her.

Jan was taken to the Countess of Chester Hospital after she complained of headaches and was rushed to intensive care at Fazakerley Hospital.

She was also seen by specialists at Walton Centre for Neurology.

'Consultants gave her less than a 25% chance of living,' said Terry.

'It was horrific. We lived in Liverpool for a month or more. It was an agonising time.

'We took her down to a specialist in London and she was treated there for five weeks.' For a husband who was told by experts that he would probably lose his wife, Terry didn't give sacrificing his 'labour of love' job to become Jane's full-time carer a second thought.

He has been caring for her for six years, attending to all her daily needs and driving her to physiotherapists twice a week and to Clwyd Special Riding School.

Jane's survival again the odds won the admiration of all her family and friends and was hailed The Chester Chronicle 'Mum in a Million' in 2001.

Charlotte, 15, who attends Bishop Heber High School, believes she's got a dad in a million, too.

'What he has done is amazing,' she said. 'When I think of what he has done to look after my mum - I just wanted to thank him.

'Mum is getting a lot better. She is starting to gain use of her right side again.'