THEY used to cut hair together and like the rest of their profession, do their best to solve everyone else’s problems. Now they’re solving each others. Sisters-in-law Sharon Horwood and Mandy Runciman own and run the Jigsaw hair salons in Southend and Hockley, and have done for the past 16 years. Their friend and former employee Fran Thompson left the profession to train as a yoga teacher and now runs a studio above their salon. Little did they realise when they made that business arrangement just how much of an impact it would have on their own lives. In June last year, shortly following the birth of her second child, Sharon, 41, had a massive stroke. “My son Noah was ten days old,” explains Sharon, who also has a daughter Maia, five. “It started with a really bad headache which I took tablets for, but within a couple of hours I said to my husband you better take me back to the maternity ward at the hospital. “They then told me to go to A and E. I passed out and woke up in Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge. “It was very, very severe.

At the time just to sit up I needed someone sitting either side of me just to stop me falling over. I couldn’t feed myself, I couldn’t walk at all.” “Most people who have a stroke have an aneurysm,” Sharon explains. “But I had an AVM which is a tangle of veins and arteries. It could appear as a thread vein, or it might erupt in your leg and you’d never know. I was just unfortunate to have one in the brain. “It’s very unusual for someone my age to have one and it’s rarer in women as well. So not only am I rare because I’m younger, I’m rare because I’m a woman. It shouldn’t have happened.” Sharon spent three months after the stroke in hospital slowly recuperating. Until it happened she had led an extremely busy life, combining the business, an active social life and her role as a mum. “I was one of those people that was really fast at everything. I did more than one thing at once all the time.” For someone who led such a hectic life, having to build it back up again from scratch has been tough. Her speech was left slurred and Sharon had lost co-ordination down the right side of her body. “I still think fast,” says Sharon. “I have kept all my marbles which is a good thing, but because of that it’s so frustrating.” She says she’s had two good reasons to fight her way back to health.

“My children are my motivation,” she smiles. Sharon’s had help from physiotherapists and occupational therapists on her road to recovery, but it’s the yoga sessions she’s been doing with Fran that have brought her the greatest sense of achievement. She still walks with the help of a stick, but now even after just a few weeks of yoga therapy she is strong enough to balance on one leg and is improving all the time. “The first time I taught her I went in with a lesson plan and I tore it up more or less,” says Fran, who runs the yoga business with her husband Martin. “She was so determined to do what I set her, I knew she could do more. Every week I’ve been blown away.” She’s not the only one. Mandy, 37, also got quite a shock. “I was astounded,” she says. “I’d been away on holiday and couldn’t believe the difference when I got back. She was walking differently. The occupational therapist and physiotherapist helped her walk but it was more like a shuffle. Yoga helped her walk a lot better. “Her speech was also a lot better thanks to the breathing techniques she’s been taught. It’s fantastic.” Mandy is also beginning to reap benefits. Her son Riley, three next month, has quite severe cerebral palsy, which requires a constant level of care. As a result Mandy doesn’t get any time to herself. She has joined Sharon’s classes and been able to take time out to relax while Fran looks after Riley.

Next year Fran will attend a specialist course to learn how to teach yoga to children with a range of issues from cerebral palsy to attention deficit disorder and hopes to be able to help Riley directly. “Yoga therapy can have very dramatic effects, but it can also have very subtle effects,” explains Fran. “At a very difficult time any effect at all has got to be a good thing.” As for Sharon, she’s just got one goal in mind. “A full recovery,” she declares. “I know it sounds silly. I might never be exactly the same, but I would like to walk and talk so people don’t notice. “I might know, my husband might know, but that person in the street – I don’t want them to know.” Yoga Dharma is situated above Jigsaw, Southchurch Road, Southend.

NOT many jobs would lead you to get married, sell your home and move to India, but that is what happened to Martin Thompson. The yoga teacher runs his own centre with wife Fran in Southchurch Road, Southend. Mr Thompson, 51, set up the Yoga Dharma centre earlier this year to teach the Astanga Vinyasa form. He said: “It is such a satisfying job, that is why we do it. We get to meet people from all walks of life. “The yoga we teach is slightly different from other forms because we concentrate on a set number of postures. There is a sequence and in that way it is more like a dance. It is also very cardiovascular.” Mr Thompson said there were many benefits to practicing yoga. He said: “Yoga makes the body very fit, healthy and strong, but it also has a very subtle effect on the mind. “The more you practice, you see it has a calming effect on the mind. “Most importantly, it changes your outlook on life. “People often walk around with a defence mechanism up, people on the Tube in London don’t even look at each other. However Mr Thompson said for him yoga had an even more dramatic effect on his life. He said: “For me yoga led me to meet my wife, Fran, we ended up selling our house and moving to India for six months to study, which was fantastic. “When we are teaching we can work around people and cater for what suits them best.” Yoga Dharma is open five days a week and classes run throughout the day.