alerie and Ron Taylor were household names when I was growing up. So it was lovely to read Valerie’s reflections (Page 10) on her adventurous life. I hadn’t realised that the famous couple. I was just a kid, but my memories of seeing that movie are seared in my brain. Like many others, I became terrified of the ocean. Valerie tells how, after came out, she and Ron went on a mission to educate people like me that only sharks are dangerous. I never want the creatures killed, but for years I clung close to the shore. Eventually, the message Ron and Valerie worked so hard to spread sunk in. I finally accepted that all sharks did not exist to hunt and eat me. I still don’t venture too far out. But I no longer shudder at the very word. Cockroaches, though, are a different story. While not out to kill anyone, pretty much everyone has a negative opinion of them. There was a unanimous reaction to our story of Kirsty’s very close encounter with one (Page 67). Most of us had a story, but Amber H definitely takes the prize for #1 cockroach-hater on the team. ‘I’ll do anything to keep them out of my life,’ she told us. ‘Every so often we put out baits at home, so it’s not unusual to spot a cockroach in the throes of death on our floor,’ she continued. ‘But there was one night when one of them decided to go through the dying process IN OUR BED!! My husband John woke to the sight and sound of me jumping up and down on the mattress screaming at the top of my lungs.’ I’m not sure who was more scared – John or the cockroach!
