​A heart transplant patient has backed a campaign to get more people to sign up for the national donor register.

Stuart Kaye, from Southdown, was a healthy and sporty teenager until a viral condition in his heart took hold.

Eventually, he needed a transplant.

Now, 22 years later, the 39-year-old is doing well, and is looking forward to competing in the British Transplant Games in his home city.

The problems began in 1987, when he was a 16-year-old in Edinburgh, dividing his days between a part-time job in a supermarket and studying for his Scottish higher exams.

He had an active lifestyle, and enjoyed cycling, swimming and socialising with his friends.

This all changed when he started to feel really tired while at work, and struggled to complete the simplest of tasks.

Stuart said: “I was at work and I felt really tired.

“My mum took me to the doctors, and he sent to me the hospital for a chest x-ray.

“They sent me to hospital, and I was told that I needed a heart transplant.”

Stuart was sent from his home in Edinburgh to the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle just before Christmas.

He was allowed home briefly to celebrate Christmas with his family and at the end of the following January had his transplant.

Stuart spent three weeks in hospital, then was allowed home.

He said: “They kept me in for three weeks after the operation, as I had a bad turn and a reaction to the drugs.

“I also had quite a bit of pain, especially in my shoulder.”

After being discharged he had a compulsory three-month rest period, before beginning light exercise, and going back to his part-time job.

Stuart also had to retake his highers, as he had missed so much school while in hospital.

When he left school he went to Napier University in Edinburgh to study electrical engineering, got a job as a civil servant in Bath, and moved to Southdown.

He says he is grateful to the person who donated their heart, as without it he would not be alive today.

However others are not so lucky, and Stuart believes more donors are needed.

He said: “If it wasn't for my transplant, I would not be here today.

“There are lots of people who need transplants, but not enough people are donors.

“It’s a very sensitive subject, and not one that people know enough about.

“If you had said to me when I was 16 about becoming an organ donor I would have wondered what you were talking about.”

More than 10,000 people in the UK need a transplant, and three people a day die before an organ is available.

Only 27 per cent of the population is on the register, and more donors are needed.

The Chronicle is urging more people in Bath to join the register in the year that the British Transplant Games return to the city.

The games will see more than 1,500 athletes who have had a transplant compete against each other from August 19 to 22.

Stuart has been competing in the annual event since 1999, and enjoys taking part in sports such as cycling, badminton and table tennis.

He said: “Competing in the Transplant Games is a laugh.

“It gives me the chance to compete against other people who have had transplants.

People can sign up to become organ donors through our website www.thisisbath.co.uk, call 0300 1232323, or visit www.organdonation.nhs.uk.