LOOKING at lively Lucy Augustus it is hard to believe that she was once so seriously ill that she needed a life-saving operation.

Six-year-old Lucy loves going to school, swimming and playing with her Barbies. But she was born with a potentially fatal disorder - biliary artresia - and at just two years old underwent a nine-and-a-half-hour liver transplant.

And just look at her now!

Her parents, Paul Augustus and Vicky Bristow, will always be grateful to the donor, a teenage girl whose death gave their precious daughter life, and they are strong advocates of the organ donor card scheme.

Lucy first featured in the South Wales Argus in March 1999, just 13 days after her transplant operation at Birmingham Children's Hospital, when we reported that she was making a remarkable recovery.

The Woodlands Primary School pupil has remained healthy and now gets a check-up every six months.

"They are really pleased with how she's doing. She's gone down from all the medication she was taking and she's on just one a day that she will have to take for the rest of her life," explained Paul, at the family's home in Trannon Court, Thornhill, Cwmbran.

"She's very, very bubbly and active. She can do virtually anything, although she can't eat grapefruit because it could cause her to reject the liver." He said they were still very grateful to the donor - whose liver was split into two and donated to Lucy and another patient - and her family.

"We can't thank them enough," said the 32-year-old, who works for Dragon Rescue.

Although the donor has to remain anonymous, letters have been exchanged between her family and Lucy's parents.

"They said she was tall, with long ginger hair and was very outgoing, bubbly and active, which is reflected in Lucy. Before the operation she was very quiet, but as soon as she had her transplant she changed overnight." Her ten-year-old brother, James, and half-brother, Joshua, are very protective towards Lucy, he added.

Paul and Vicky support the Children's Liver Disease Foundation, and last year raised about £160 with a raffle at a Cwmbran fete.

They now intend to offer their backing to Andy Tookey - a former Newport man now living in New Zealand whose daughter, Katie, will need a liver transplant. We revealed how he launched a campaign after discovering his adopted country had the worst record for organ donation in the developed world.