A North Yorkshire couple's successful kidney transplant has been called a 14 million to one shot by doctors and it's all down to their healthy sex life.

Gordon Goodchild, 42, of Ryedale Close, Norton, thought he had no chance of receiving a suitable donor kidney after doctors told him a rogue antibody in his blood would reject any possible organs.

But wife Sue, 40, successfully donated one of her kidneys in a radical new keyhole surgical procedure earlier this year.

And doctors have said the life-changing result is a fortuitous benefit of 14 years of happily married life.

"For six years I was in living hell having dialysis for up to ten hours every day, and all that time the solution was lying there beside me," said Gordon.

"The reason why her kidney was such a good match was my antibodies recognised hers as we had been having sex for all those years.

"I am a totally different man now after the operation, it is hard to explain but I have got my life back."

Gordon, who works as an engineer at Nestl Rowntree in York, said the couple were "not sex maniacs".

"We did not think we should have more sex to make our kidneys match.

"It is just a normal part of our marriage and a really happy story," he said.

After a failed transplant operation in August last year Gordon said he felt like he had "won the lottery but then lost the ticket."

While researching new developments in donor surgery on the internet he saw that donor operations between partners have been successfully carried out in the United States.

Gordon suggested the idea to his consultant who said he had no objections and testing went ahead.

The four-hour operation in January at St James's Hospital in Leeds was the first of its kind in the north of England.

Sue benefited from a new keyhole surgical technique which surgeons stress is much less traumatic and painful for the donor than traditional methods.

With the keyhole method the donor can be out of hospital in two to three days and back to normal within four to six weeks instead of a three to four-month recuperation period.

The couple have now been approached by many other people whom Gordon believes the technique could benefit.

"We have had a lot of contact with other people in the same situation.

"Before I was living my life on a machine but now I have a whole new future," said Gordon.

Updated: 08:23 Wednesday, October 03, 2001