Oxford surgeons will be able to save four people's lives with pioneering artificial hearts - thanks to two pensioners, writes Victoria Owen.

Percy and Charlette Thomas left £190,000 - the bulk of their estate - to a team at the John Radcliffe Hospital working to develop a world-first revolutionary thumb-sized artificial heart - after reading about their pioneering work in the Oxford Mail.

The money, being handed over today, will pay for four heart patients to be fitted with the titanium machines.

Doctors across the world will chart the progress of the operations, to be carried out later this year.

Mrs Thomas died in December 1998 aged 75 and her husband, a retired accountant at AERE Harwell, died eight months later at the age of 76. Neither ever suffered from any heart problems themselves. But the couple, of Galley Field, Abingdon, had read stories in the Oxford Mail about heart surgeon Stephen Westaby's pioneering work - and decided that the biggest slice of their money should be used to fund his project.

Mr Westaby has been researching the new thumb-sized artificial heart for eight years and is now getting ready to implant the Jarvik 2000 into six patients.

Each titanium machine costs nearly £50,000 and the first four patients will be given their new hearts courtesy of the Thomas' generosity.

Mr Westaby, a cardiothoracic consultant, told the Mail today: "This money should help to save four people who would otherwise not have been able to receive this type of treatment.

"The Jarvik stays in a patients' heart forever, unless their own heart recovers after it is rested and we can remove the artificial heart.

"Our progress this year is extremely exciting and you wouldn't be far wrong to say that the whole medical world is watching us at the John Radcliffe."

Mr Thomas's executor, Scott Thomson was meeting Mr Westaby today to hand over the cash.

He said: "It's lovely that they are helping in this way - and I feel chuffed to be able to hand over the money."

The couple, who had no children, met in Ayrshire during the war, where Mr Thomas was posted in the RAF and Mrs Thomas was a nurse.

They married before moving to Preston, and then on to Abingdon, where they spent the last 40 years of their lives.

Mr Thomson, whose wife was the Thomas's niece, said: "We can't find any valid link for the donation, except that my wife's aunt only had one lung and spent a lot of time in the John Radcliffe."

Story date: Monday 14 February

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.