Category: Yorkshire & N.Midlands; E.Yorkshire & Lincolnshire

Date: 04.02.2005
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Buster Bloodvessel, the larger than life frontman of Eighties band Bad Manners, is featured in the BBC ONE current affairs show Inside Out (Yorkshire & N.Midlands and E.Yorkshire & Lincolnshire) this week paying a special tribute to the Yorkshire doctor who saved his life.

The singer, real name Douglas Trendle, 44, weighed in at a life-threatening 31 stone before the operation in Leeds last year which removed most of his stomach.

The operation, which helped Buster get down to 13 stone, was carried out on the NHS by Professor Michael McMahon in the Leeds Nuffield Hospital after other doctors had turned him down - afraid he would not survive.

Bloodvessel, whose band has had hits with Lip Up Fatty, Special Brew and Can Can, tells Inside Out (BBC ONE Yorkshire & N.Midlands and E.Yorkshire & Lincolnshire, Monday 7 February, 7.30pm) that he has been given a new lease of life.

He says: "I feel a million dollars, I cannot thank the doctor enough. I was living up to an image - people expected Buster to be huge.

"I always thought there might be a miracle cure round the corner. It's like someone has said - here's life again."

Surgeons elsewhere feared that Buster was so fat he would die on the operating table, but Professor McMahon pioneered this extraordinary operation in Leeds.

He believes some obese people cannot lose weight purely by dieting - they are clinically ill.

Inside Out shows the Professor explaining the intricacies of the operation to Buster when the singer - who is renowned for his energetic stage acts - pays a special visit to Leeds.

Bloodvessel, who once owned a hotel in Margate, Kent, called Fatty Towers, formed Bad Manners in 1979.

The group still tours and the TV show uses footage from concerts in Bradford and Scunthorpe.