Brotherly love

Tuesday 15th June 2010, 2:30PM BST.

Paul Billington holding a picture of his brother, Ian. He has twice flown to New Zealand to donate blood to try and save him from leukaemia. (Picture by Adrian Miller, 0984949)

LOCAL resident Paul Billington, 62, flew across the world twice to save the life of his brother.

His elder sibling, Ian, 66, who lives in New Zealand, was diagnosed with leukaemia in mid-2008 and needed a marrow transplant.

Mr Billington and his non-identical twin brother Bryan, who lives in the country, were tested for compatibility in August that year, but only Mr Billington was a match.

That meant he then had to overcome numerous emotional, logistical and financial obstacles to fly nearly 30 hours from Guernsey to New Zealand in April 2009, to have a stem cell harvest.

But at the time he did not know that he would have to do it all again just a year later.