Two months on: first man in Britain to have hand transplant

On Calendar tonight we will be speaking to Mark Cahill - the first man in Britain to have a hand transplant - to see how he is getting on.

The former pub landlord, from Greetland, near Halifax, became the first person in Britain to have a hand transplant.

Before the operation, at Leeds General Infirmary, he said the thing he was most looking forward to was holding his grandson's hand.

Mr Cahill, 51, had his paralysed right hand replaced with a donor hand in an eight-hour operation.

Mark was in agony for years with gout in his old hand, which was then left paralysed five years ago by an infection.

The married father-of-one gave up his job as a pub landlord after he was left unable to fasten buttons or cut up food.

But last year he heard Simon Kay, Professor of Hand Surgery, was looking for hand donors and recipients.

He put his name down and on Boxing Day got a call to say a donor had been found. Mark had the operation 24 hours later.

Medics attached the bones in his arm and new hand with titanium plates. They also connected 12 tendons, eight blood vessels and three large nerves.

The first hand transplant was in France in 1997.