SOSquiz.org

About the webmaster, designer, author, coffee maker… Steve Tayleur’s Autobiography

I would personally like to thank you for reading this far down the page. Anyway, I was born in Ipswich, Australia in 1975, and apparently, I was the 5^th person born in Australia that year. I was raised on the lighthouses along the Queensland coast until I was 11. My family were stationed on Booby Island, Lady Elliot Island, Dent Island and finally, Pine Islet. My family also holds the distinction of being on the last 3 automated lighthouses in Australia. As other noteworthy events in my life go: I learnt to swim when I was 6 months old, walked at 8 months and learnt to ride a bike when I was 3. I became fascinated in the environment at the age of 4 when I discovered a yoghurt pot covered in barnacles supporting the 1972 Olympics held in Sapporo, Japan. It obviously looked like it had been floating around in the Pacific Ocean for those 7 years before I found it washed up on the beach at Lady Elliot Island, the most Southerly point of the Great Barrier Reef. On February 23^rd, 1980, Category 4 Severe Tropical Cyclone Simon hit Lady Elliot Island. I remember the wind howling through the trees in the evening and wave splash flying overhead, which was already quite an experience, but then early in the morning we discovered the Thisbe, a large sailing vessel, washed onto the reef and my family participated in the rescue of the crew. I spent years playing in the wreckage watching it disintegrate as Mother Nature slowly took back what was once hers. Every morning, I enjoyed fishing to catch my breakfast, which my mother would prepare freshly fried in butter. Delicious! We were transferred to Dent Island shortly before Severe Tropical Cyclone Elinor passed over the island on February 26^th, 1983. I went outside while the eye was overhead, which was incredibly eerie. Having experienced so many things so young, I never really felt in danger until I was about 10 on Dent Island when an incident involving the SS Oriana cruise ship occurred. It ran aground on a reef near Hook Island and my father decided to go and investigate in our small dinghy. We arrived as high tide approached and the ship was able to float off. We accompanied the ship on its journey travelling in the same direction we needed to return home. We pulled into the boat port and my father climbed the cliff to lower the winch to lift the dinghy out of the water. I remained in the boat to fix the winch hook to the cables. Unfortunately, before my father could lower the hook totally, the wake of the SS Oriana arrived and violently swept me and the dinghy out to sea. I barely survived the experience being thrown about inside the boat and holding on for dear life. I also barely survived another incident when I was 12 when a canoe turned upside down on top of me in the surf at Bondi beach while visiting family in Sydney. Fortunately, I lived to tell the tale, obviously. I moved back to Ipswich aged 11, which was quite dramatic moving to a city from an island in the middle of the Pacific. When I was 15 we decided to move to England, which was a little traumatic leaving many friends behind and starting again in another culture, where about the only thing in common was the language. I won several prizes at school for Environmental projects, but I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t learning about our beautiful planet. I’ve had many jobs from a young age including Rock DJ and PR Rep, eventually settling on teaching English to foreign students, which I continued when I moved to Barcelona, Spain aged 28. As a hobby in the UK, I participated in local quizzes, but due to strange circumstances I became a Quizmaster shortly after arriving in Barcelona. While I was the Assistant Quizmaster at the Philharmonic Quiz, the Quizmaster Martin Lunn, developed melanoma cancer and died soon after, RIP, leaving me in charge, and I took up the baton until the pandemic arrived. In the meantime I got married to an excellent Clinical Psychologist in 2006, and became a father in 2007 and again in 2009, which greatly changed my perspectives about many things. In 2016, I decided to become a qualified Environmental Educator through the AEEA (Spanish Association of Environmental Education) and I now dedicate my time to saving the planet, engaging in online environmental activism, writing about it, etc. The show goes on…

Health wise, my family has suffered a little: My mother died aged 60 and my father 70, and I believe air pollution greatly contributed to their early deaths from stroke and heart disease, but that said, both of them smoked. I foolishly smoked for 9 years too, before giving up. I have mild asthma, and allergies are common in my family. Here in Barcelona, I protest with “Eixample Respira” against air pollution, traffic noise, etc. I also protest against Asbestos with “Glories LLiure d’Amiant”, because of the terrible death of my uncle Trevor who used to be a builder installing materials containing Asbestos for many years, both in the forms of corrugated sheets for roofing and as insulation material. I should also mention that he was a smoker, so I suppose smoking should be on my future list of things to fight. Shortly after he retired, he started to feel a strange pain in his chest, so he got some tests done and it turns out he had lung cancer. They thought it was mesothelioma, which is a type of cancer caused by asbestos fibres which irritate the cells of the lung lining. He underwent an operation to remove the affected part of the lung and did a course of chemotherapy. All went well for a while, until he started having a similar problem in the other lung. Back to the doctor he went, same result, another operation and chemo, but this time he wasn’t so lucky. The cancer had spread. He tried everything the doctors suggested, but the medication also took its toll on his health. After nearly 8 years of fighting cancer, this burly happy builder I knew and loved was left without dignity and hope, and slowly drowned in his own rotting lung tissues. At least 100,000 people die because of Asbestos every year and it can take anywhere between 10 to 50 years to develop into cancer. I would not wish cancer on anyone, let alone lung cancer…