A dad is appealing for people to become organ donors after a double transplant saved his life.

Paul Dennison, 41, needed a new kidney and pancreas because of long-term diabetes, and he is marking World Kidney Day today by calling for donors.

Mr Dennison, of Green Way, Lydd, said: “Having those transplants not only saved my life; it also changed my life.

“When I was ill I could hardly walk. Now I am physically pretty much back to normal. My eight-year-old daughter says it’s nice that she got her daddy back.”

Mr Dennis, a car mechanic and MOT tester at St Mary’s Bay Garage, was diagnosed with kidney failure on Father’s Day, June 2013, after having Type 1 diabetes for 20 years.

For the next two years, he was unable to work.

He said: “Diabetes kills the kidneys, so that’s why they go into failure. I struggled to go up even a couple of steps and could do almost nothing but sleep.

“And the condition I had makes your body so cold that in both the summers of 2013 and 2014 every day I had to sit at home with a blanket, the central heating on and an electric fire.

“I was also on dialysis three times a week. On the days I wasn’t, toxins were coming into my body - that’s how you can die.”

Mr Dennison had the double transplant last May at Guy’s Hospital in London.

He is now well enough to work full time again, and is gradually regaining his full strength.

The mechanic is also now enjoying a return to quality family life with his wife, Jo, 43, and daughter, Grace.

Mr Dennison said; “I am appealing for people to donate organs because they are so desperately needed.

“The waiting times for people to get a new kidney is on average five years.”

The pancreas can only be taken from a donor after death, but you can give a kidney while still alive.

Mr Dennison got both his kidney and pancreas from the same person, a 37-year-old woman who died of a brain aneurysm.

World Kidney Day is an annual global awareness and education event involving charities, healthcare professionals, patients groups and individuals.

With type 1 diabetes, the body does not produce any insulin at all.

Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas, which controls the amount of glucose in the blood.