TED Hall has never let the loss of his left arm stop him from doing what he loves. ROSLYN LANIGAN reports

When Alexandra's Ted Hall lost his left arm in a work accident 46 years ago, it would have been pretty easy to chuck in the towel.

But Ted doesn't believe in taking it easy. Never has, never will.

It was 1962 when Ted, just two weeks into a job at a local fish farm, lost his footing on a slippery floor and trapped his arm in a mincing machine.

Just five months after the accident, Ted, then 25, returned to the shearing work he'd loved since he was a schoolboy.

"The hardest part was working out how to shear again," Ted, now 72, recalls.

"After the accident, I'd spend half the night awake with the pain so I'd think about ways to keep doing it.

"When I got back to work it was pretty frustrating because I'd gone from shearing 140 head a day to just 30."

Ted says his return to the shearing shed also caused a new injury.

On his first day back, he returned home to his wife, Val, sporting nine Band-Aids up his arm.

His specially designed arm piece, attached with leather straps around his back and arms, had been pinching the skin of his arm stump and making it bleed.

"After that, I started to wear a sock over what's left of my arm," Ted says. "That seems to work."

Before long, Ted had increased his daily shearing tally to 100.

His technique remains much the same, but unlike other shearers, Ted is forced to pull the cord to start his handpiece then swing around to catch it with the same hand.

"I did 100 one day every year for three years then I said 'right, that's enough' and dropped back to about 80 a day. That was my limit."

These days, Ted only shears occasionally for family and friends using a shearing plant set up on the back of his old ute.

"The biggest mob I do now is only about 20 head, but most jobs are just five or six sheep.

"Shearing's no harder now than it was with two hands."

The accident also failed to stop Ted from enjoying another of his childhood pursuits - knitting.

"I grew up with six sisters and I was the only boy," Ted says.

"Mum said we had to learn everything - cooking, sewing, knitting.

"I've given up the cooking and the sewing, but the knitting is my relaxation."

Val says Ted's knitting box is a permanent fixture on the kitchen table.

When The Weekly Times visited Ted, he was working on a pair of colourful bed socks with a rabbit motif, using four knitting needles - a challenge for knitters with two hands.

He has won knitting competitions at local shows and even had an entry displayed at the Royal Melbourne Show.

"He gets up at 5am and knits four or five rows every morning before he takes the dog for a walk," Val says.

"He doesn't believe in resting - he never has."

An article on Ted's knitting prowess featured in the Australian Women's Weekly in 1989, after Val had read a story on a group of male knitters in the same magazine.

"I remember reading the article and getting quite angry because I thought 'what's so special about them? Ted is doing it with one hand'," Val says.

"So I sent them a letter and before long, a reporter called the house to ask if it was true.

"Then I had to tell Ted I'd dobbed him in to the magazine."

After the article appeared, Ted was contacted by a lady in Warrnambool who had lost the use of a hand.

"She asked if I could teach her to knit again," he says.

"So Val and I went to Warrnambool and knocked on her door and I showed her how to do it."

Over the years, Ted has been inundated with requests from family and friends for his intricate knitted items.

He says a jumper depicting the face of Elvis Presley was his most popular garment.

Val wore the jumper in the Women's Weekly photo, and again when an Elvis impersonator visited Alexandra recently.

"The impersonator congratulated me on my needlework," Val says.

"But everyone yelled out 'it's her husbands'."

Ted admits he still has moments when he is frustrated by his arm piece, but has learned to find humour in tricky situations.

"Sometimes I'm a bit cheeky and use it to pinch Val on the bum," he laughs.

"And when Val broke her elbow a few years back, we only had two arms between us.

"We were a real sight hanging the washing out on the line - Val would hold the clothes up and I would put the pegs on.

"It was a real team effort."

Between knitting and shearing jobs, Ted spends his time tending his cows, sheep and chooks, kept on farms belonging to friends and family on the outskirts of town.

"None of the farmers take any notice when they see me wandering around their paddocks," Ted says.

"I just like to keep an eye on the animals and help out where I can.

"I never have a dull day - there's always something happening."