I couldn't have lived with myself if I turned down the chance to save a life': Widower, 83, becomes oldest person in UK to donate kidney to a stranger

• Nicholas Crace's kidneys found to function as well as those of someone in their 40s
• There are around 7,000 patients waiting for a transplant with

Gift of a lifetime: 83-year-old Nicholas Crace is the oldest living kidney donor in the UK and the oldest person to give a kidney to a stranger

At the age of 83, most of us would be grateful just to have our health.
But not only is Nicholas Crace fighting fit, he is using his good condition to help others.

The former charity director has become Britain’s oldest living kidney donor by giving his organ to a stranger.
Mr Crace decided to be an 'altruistic donor' – someone who donates to a patient on the NHS waiting list whom they do not know – after his wife Brigid died last year.
After researching how he could help others, he found he was 43 years too old to be a bone marrow donor and 13 years too old to give blood, despite donating 57 times previously.
But when tests showed his kidneys were functioning as well as a 40-year-old’s, he knew he had to donate.
'I couldn’t have lived with myself with the knowledge that I had had the chance of changing someone’s life and turned it down,' he said.
'Giving a small part of me to someone else will make little difference to my life but a huge difference to someone else’s.

'It was an easy decision for me to make.’
Mr Crace, who volunteers as a driver for a hospice, was moved to act after discovering what life was like for patients on the transplant list who are having dialysis.

New lease of life: A kidney patient will be able to come off dialysis thanks to Mr Crace (File pic)

He said: 'All this can be put right by the donation of a healthy kidney.'
Mr Crace, from Overton, Hampshire, had the operation at the Queen Alexandra Hospital, Portsmouth, and was back bicycling and mowing the lawn a week later.

'Giving a small part of me to someone else will make little difference to my life but a huge difference to someone else's - it was an easy decision for me to make'

Because he is an altruistic donor, he will never know who received his  kidney, but he has been told the recipient is 'doing well'.
Consultant surgeon Sam Dutta, who performed the operation, said: 'A living donor kidney performs better, works quicker and lasts longer than one from a deceased donor.
'An altruistic donor coming forward is an amazing thing for us. The recipient just gets a new lease of life.'
Mr Crace's operation took three hours and the surgeon congratulated him as his kidneys were in perfect condition.
He said: 'In fact, given a halter, he would gladly have led me into the winner's enclosure at the Smithfield Show to have a rosette pinned on.'

Generous: Mr Crace, 83, from Overton, Hampshire, had an operation to remove his kidney and was back bicycling and mowing the lawn a week later

Annabel Ferriman, chairwoman of Give a Kidney - One's Enough, a charity dedicated to raising awareness of altruistic donation, said: 'Altruistic donors are very special people.
'They have the imagination to understand the suffering that people go through on dialysis while waiting for a transplant and the courage and generosity to do something about it.'
The process involved Mr Crace undergoing a number of tests during 14 hospital visits in a six-month period.
Almost 100 people have donated a kidney since the altruistic living donor scheme was launched in the UK in 2006 and in 2011 a further 1,000 people gave a kidney to a relative or friend.