AN Appleton man who contracted Legionnaires' disease while on a dream holiday to the Caribbean says that the illness has turned his life upside down.

As reported in last week's Guardian, Peter Ashley, of Dorney Close, has won a five-year battle to get Thomson Holidays to admit liability for his contracting the illness, and he is now attempting to reach a financial settlement with the company.

Mr Ashley, aged 66, is still recovering from the chronic fatigue syndrome and severe depression which followed him contracting the disease, and he has also suffered two heart attacks since his stay at the Hotel Fiesta Bravo, in the Dominican Republic, in 1997.

He said: "I believe that not only has my health suffered, but I have suffered in terms of my job and my whole lifestyle.

"We used to go abroad on holiday every year, but we have only been to Jersey since then because I need the medical facilities to hand.

"I have to rely on my wife because I can only walk about 100 yards without trouble, and obviously I cannot drive any more.

"It has been a dramatic change in lifestyle but I am determined to make the best of things and I do not want to give in."

Mr Ashley had to quit his position as a company director after contracting Legionnaires' disease - an acute form of pneumonia, which is spread via water or air conditioning systems.

He said that he started feeling ill around three days into his holiday but could remember very little else until he woke up in the infectious diseases unit in Liverpool.

He added: "My wife somehow managed to get me to the airport and on to the plane while I was semi-comatose. Fortunately the flight was empty, so I could lie across three seats.

"We always booked into five-star hotels because we thought you were well treated there, but we were not."