David Dawson’s 30-year wait for a new kidney is over after a successful transplant at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB).

The 52-year-old from Milton, Stoke-on-Trent, had given up hope of ever getting a suitable donor organ after one failed transplant in 1984.

“I had accepted that I would be dialysing for the rest of my life,” he said. “It’s absolutely brilliant, I’m on a high right now. The operation went well, I’m feeling well and the doctors are pleased with me.”

When the transplant co-ordinator called Mr Dawson at 04:00 on Tuesday, June 30, he nearly didn’t answer because he thought it would be crank call. But 12 hours later his was in a theatre undergoing the operation he’d been dreaming of for three decades.

“I just wondered who the hell it could be calling so early,” he said. “But the phone went three or four times and I eventually decided to go downstairs and answer.

“It was QE transplant co-ordinator Sheryl Parsons. She told me they had a possible match and that I needed to get to Birmingham as quickly as I could.

“Tissue typing and cross-matching had to be done at that stage and I had to go on dialysis for four hours when I arrived. Just before I came off that the co-ordinator came and said it was a match and I just broke down and cried.”

Mr Dawson’s condition only came to light when he went for routine medical in his late teens.

“I wasn’t ill before I was diagnosed. I just went for a medical before starting a job and the urine test showed some blood. That’s when it all started,” he said.

Mr Dawson underwent a transplant at North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary in 1984 but that kidney failed after nine months and he had been waiting for a second chance ever since.

“You see other people getting transplants after a matter of months and you get to a point where you think, this is not going to happen.

“But the message I would give to people in the same position now is to never give up hope, never say never. It can happen no matter how long you’ve been waiting.”

Mr Dawson, a former jewellery repairer, is now looking forward to enjoying a more normal life.

“I’ll be a lot fitter and free from the dialysis, which has taken up three days of my life every week,” he said. “The problem will be finding things to do with myself now.”

The former jewellery repairer can’t wait to start enjoying some of the foods he has not been able to enjoy.

“I’ll be able to go and have a pint now,” he said. “But, believe it or not, I’m really looking forward to having a banana and one of the first things I intend to do is to have a Costa coffee because I’ve never had one – they weren’t about 30 years ago!”