The Galloping Nun

This is the story of Sister Chiara, the socialite who became a Franciscan nun. Born into the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, presented at court and married to an army officer, Chiara Hatton Hall set up a riding school for the international social elite. Her students included the young Princess Royal, Princess Anne. At the age of 42, after the death of her husband, Chiara found her vocation as a religious and exchanged her jodhpurs for a Franciscan habit. Embracing a life of poverty, chastity and obedience, she was later to become an instructing judge on a diocesan marriage tribunal. Then, at the suggestion of an imaginative superior, she took up the reins again - this time to work for Riding for the Disabled, travelling the world to teach riding instructors how to bring confidence, self-respect and joy to mentally and physically handicapped adults and children. Now in her 80th year, Sister Chiara looks back on a life of dramatic contrasts that were ultimately reconciled by embracing the spirit of St Francis.