A FALL at her Alsager home led to the death of former councillor Mrs Peggy Vaughan Barker.

Coroner, Nicholas Rheinberg recorded an accidental verdict after hearing how the 79-year-old myasthenia gravis sufferer died from bronchial pnuemonia after fracturing her arm and breast bone.

Mrs Barker's husband George, a retired bank manager, said in a statement to the inquest at Crewe that he had found her on the floor of the hall at their house in Windsor Drive last December. A grandfather clock had fallen on top of her.

She was taken to Leighton Hospital and then to the South Cheshire private hospital before going to Richmond Village for respite care.

A former teacher, but a housewife and mother for many years, she was diagnosed with myasthenia in 1985. The disease made her very tired but she was able to get about with the aid of a walking frame.

Mr Rheinberg said that he had no doubt that despite Mrs Walker's age and medical condition it had been the fall that had started the chain of events that led to her death.

The congestion that developed on her chest would have been difficult to move because of the fracture to her breast bone.