A 67-YEAR-OLD Wellington man has become one of the country’s longest-living liver transplant recipients.

Ian Ashmore, a former rugby player with Wellington and Taunton, received a new liver at Cambridge in 1986 at the age of 36 which involved four more operations afterwards – and another in 2009 in London.

“When I had the operation first there were rejection problems and the liver was only thought to last for about 15 years if everything went well,” he said.

“Mine lasted for 23 years before I had another. It was well past its sell-by date,” joked Ian who lives with his wife Maggie on the new Longforth Farm estate in Wellington.

“If I remember only two of the nine patients who had liver transplants at Cambridge at about the same time survived. And I don’t think the other is alive today.

For the full story see this week’s Wellington Weekly News.