A GRIEVING widow has raised £1,200 to thank the twin transplant teams who helped her husband cheat death not once but twice.

Maureen Tiplady shrugged off the tears she shed after her beloved John's death last autumn to show her gratitude toNewcastle'sFreeman Hospital.

Staff fought for his life by first giving him a new heart in 1991 and then a new kidney six years later.

Despite their efforts, Mr Tiplady, from Coundon, died last December, aged 62, unable to conquer the circulatory disease which had kept him in the Freeman since August.

Now his widow says she will never forget the first-class care he was given in the hospital's renal and cardiac units.

She said her thanks in a positive way by organising a charity night in Coundon and Leedholem Workmen's Club which brought in £600 for each of the two departments. Mrs Tiplady said: "The hospital did everything they could and he fought to the end but he could not make it. After he died I felt I wanted to put something back. Raising the money was the only way I knew how to say thank you to them all. We owe a lot to the hospital. They gave him some good extra years even though he was so ill."

Mr Tiplady had been plagued with ill health since suffering the first of four heart attacks at the age of 39.

Days after his kidney transplant in January 1997 he celebrated his 60th birthday with his family gathered around his hospital bed.