My husband, Peter Chadwick, who has died of sepsis and cancer aged 61, was a solicitor and a rugby union fan whose love of the sport was undiminished by a catastrophic injury.
He was born in Widnes, then in Lancashire, to Jim Chadwick and his wife, Nancy (nee Bill). Jim was a secondary school teacher, and later the couple ran a small hotel in Cornwall with Nancy’s sister, Margaret. Peter attended Prescot grammar school and then moved at the age of 18 to the East Midlands, a part of the country he loved.
He studied law at Leicester Polytechnic (now De Montfort University), graduating in 1977. We met there, where I was also studying law, in 1976, and we married in 1984.
When he was 25, Peter was injured playing rugby for Loughborough, leaving him with a high-level spinal cord injury. With the help and support of family and a few close friends, he returned to work as a high street solicitor and independent living within about a year. This was no mean achievement and required great determination in days when care in the community was non-existent.
Peter refused to allow himself to be defined by his disability and he enjoyed what we liked to think was a normal family life with me and our two children. Although a full-time wheelchair user, he ignored his disability as far as possible and did his best to do all the things that “normal” families do.
For our children, manoeuvring their father on to a pink lilo in a swimming pool in the Dordogne was a moment of joy. Getting out of the pool to take his photo when he fell off the lilo was more natural than worrying about saving him.
As well as working full-time, Peter contributed widely in the local community, helping the local rugby club as the junior fixtures secretary, supporting other people with disabilities through a nearby community council and volunteering in the church where we worshipped. Alongside this, Peter continued to enjoy watching rugby, whether at the edge of a muddy field watching our son play or at Twickenham.
Peter began his newspaper reading life with the Daily Telegraph, but died a committed reader of the Guardian.
He is survived by me and our children, Alice and Nick, and by his mother and his brother, Mark.
