What a big difference! Wilfrid, 100, can see

difference to my life. He has done a good job on me!

“Before the operation I struggled to recognise even old friends and that’s changed for the better now. I spend a lot of time reading too and I can make out the words a lot easier too.”

Wilfrid’s granddaughter, Ruth Price, said: “His right eye was the worst so that one was operated on first and when it has all settled down he will be having a further operation on his left one.

“We are very grateful for Antonio’s care of him. My grandad is thrilled with what he has done. He had been looking forward to having it done for a while.”

Antonio said: “Although Wilfrid is of advanced years the operation was not any more complicated than it would be for anyone else. He can certainly see a lot better now than he did before.”

And Wilfrid is not the oldest patient Antonio has operated upon. When he was working in Tennessee in 1998 he performed a life-changing operation on a blind and deaf man aged 110 whose parents had been slaves.

Antonio, who has now notched up over 10,000 operations in a career that began 42 years ago in 1975, said: “The man was completely deaf and completely blind. He was effectively living on a sofa all day long. He could barely distinguish day from night.

“After the operation he was able to live a much more active life and could walk round his house and had supper by himself. He could see the spoons and eat without help.”

Now coming towards the end of his career, Antonio who lived in Fixby for many years, says he will not be a consultant ophthalmic surgeon for Calderdale NHS Trust much longer.

The father of two grown-up daughters said: “I have been here 13 years which is the longest I have spent in any one place and I decided to go part-time a year ago. We have a house in Madrid where my wife Laura lives and I might still work on an ad hoc basis as a locum when I return there in the future.”

His love of nature and biology is one of the reasons why he was drawn to a career in medicine.