A TIRELESS Kidderminster fund-raiser and co-founder of a kidney patients charity has died, aged 65, after a long period of illness.

Ted Sidaway, of Flint Close, former chairman of Wordsley Hospital Kidney Patients Association, was given just five years to live after he was diagnosed with renal failure in 1968 when he was aged just 32. He was also suffering from skin cancer.

Born in Stourbridge, the youngest son in a family of 11, he represented his school and county in football, cricket and swimming. He carried out his national service with the Royal Artillery, rising to the rank of bombardier.

Mr Sidaway worked in the building and engineering trade, most recently as a maintenance operative at the County Express, Stourbridge, prior to his retirement.

He worked as a volunteer for Wordsley Hospital Kidneys Patients Association for about 20 years and organised and ran a charity shop in Wordsley which opened in 1993.

A citation by the Rotary Club of Stourbridge in 1994 said: "You identified the need for mutual support and were prominent in founding the association.

"Despite major physical handicaps you served as member and chairman of the group and later undertook the establishment of a shop together with a publicity role to raise public awareness of the need for organ donors.

"Your unstinting efforts are an inspiration and example to your fellow sufferers."

In his account of his fight against chronic renal failure, One Day at a Time, published last year, Mr Sidaway charted the amputation of the lower part of his left arm in 1984, three fingers on his right hand in 1988 and the lower half of his left leg in 1989.

Sister-in-law Marjorie Sidaway, of Norfolk Road, Wollaston, said: "He was a very, very brave man all through his illnesses."

Mr Sidaway, who was cremated at Stourbridge Crematorium last Thursday, leaves a wife, two sons, three granddaughters and two grandsons.