A carpenter has developed a talent for cake-making after a combined kidney and pancreas transplant operation turned his life around.

Eighteen months ago Michael Rowland could barely walk more than a few metres without getting tired.

Every day he had to inject himself with four shots of insulin, take a cocktail of 10 pills and use a dialysis bag every five hours just to stay alive.

Now, thanks to an anonymous donor and the work of staff at the Oxford Transplant Centre in Headington, the 46-year-old granddad says he has been given a new lease of life.

Not only has he been able to climb up the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but with his new found ability to eat a wealth of previously deadly foods, he has become a cake-maker extraordinaire, baking up a storm in the kitchen up to six times a week.

He said: "I've gone from can't cook, won't cook, to someone who's in the kitchen whenever I get a chance.

"Even my mum asks me to cook for her now.

"I sat at home after coming out of hospital and made some cookies.

"The next thing I knew I was on to fruit cakes, then Christmas cakes, then birthday cakes."

His love of baking emerged soon after he came out of Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital in January 2005 following his kidney and pancreas operation.

The former office worker admits he is at a loss to completely explain where his skill and passion for baking suddenly came from.

He added: "There are stories of people picking up traits similar to their donors.

"Whether my organs came from a chef is something I've thought about, but it could just be that the ability was lying latent inside me and when I discovered this new freedom and energy it came out."

Mr Rowland, from Henley, had been a diabetic since the age of 15 and, as a result, developed kidney failure at the end of 2003.

His nine-hour transplant operation took place in January.

Now he wants to encourage people to support the campaign to raise £5m to double the size of the transplant unit, which is at the Churchill Hospital.

He said: "I hope people get behind this campaign, the transplant has changed my life."