Valery Taylor, A Woman of substance

On 9th November, 1936, a blonde newborn breathed her first in Sydney, Australia. The family domiciled in Crown Street, moved to New Zealand and returned after the war when she was 16 years of age to reside in a waterfront home in Cronulla. She was christened, Valerie May.

No one knew then what she will do, or who she will become. She was not inclined towards the academic world, but loved her world of the water and nature. She transformed her experiences into paintings, a gift that first earned her a job creating word puzzles for Courier Mail and the Sun Herald, and, comic strips for ‘Silver Jacket’, an adventure magazine for boys. Her naturally blonde hair and slim frame found some early fame as the shampoo model for Silverscreen, a famous shampoo and conditioner brand in her time. She also found time between shoots to model for portraits and even be part of a dance routine on Bandstand. There were no grandiose ambitions besides the sheer simplicity of following the simple yearnings of her heart ….and she wasted no time living those yearnings as fully as she could.

Today, she stands tall and proud as one of the most celebrated and decorated marine conservationists in the world, campaigning tirelessly, travelling, diving, painting, learning, entertaining friends, guests and family and most of all, living her beliefs and dreams with great zest and, simplicity. All the fame and celebrity friends who have graced her home and presence have only illuminated the substance in this simple and wonderful woman. Tracing the days of exploring and snorkelling along the Cronulla beach with her brother Gregory, Valerie felt the calling in her heart at Cronulla. Her father’s diet of fish, for his stomach ulcer condition, found them providing the black fish and bream from the waters at their doorstep. She adapted to the water, learned to use SCUBA and honed her spearfishing skills to an award winning art that brought her to the male counterpart of spearfishing, Ron, at the St. George’s Spearfishing Club where they were both members. They eventually married in December 1963 and remain as Ron and Valerie Taylor. If one googled Valerie Taylor, you may get a poet or a physiotherapist, but not the Valerie of the Ron and ValerieTaylor fame. In 1981 Valerie was honoured by theUnderwater Society of America where she received the NOGI award for the Arts and joined Ron who received his in 1966, as the only husband and wife team to be awarded a NOGI.

A simple life that knew not chewing gum or a balloon or the taste of chocolate, till she was about nine or ten, Valerie learnt early to savour what she had more than hanker over things she did not have. It kept a clear focus on all that she did and perhaps explains her sharp eye for art and things beautiful. As the fish they speared got less and further, expressed in her words, “so many fish in the shallows, you never thought you could make a difference. You really thought if you took a hundred fish, there’ d still be a hundred more to replace them”. Valerie realised the sadness of the sport that brought her fame and a husband, was diminishing what we had. Though Ron and Valerie were highly recognised and acclaimed champions in this sport, in 1969, they retired from it and in 1970 Valerie wrote a letter to the NSW government addressed to the ‘ department that was responsible for the taking of fish while using self contained breathing apparatus’ to make it illegal. This ban went Australia wide. The following year, horrified by the terrible slaughter of Sea Lions by commercial fishermen, Valerie used Ron’s footage to prove her point and had all Sea Lions protected in NSW; another conservation law that became national. There were no time-consuming intellectual debates or fame seeking lobbies. They were acts of simplicity in total and utter sincerity; virtues that our sophisticated and modern world seem to have forgotten. It was the dawning of Valerie’s calling, manifesting as a catalyst towards conservation.

Oddly, the path to conservation, started first with ignorance and destruction before awareness set in. Being a woman of action, only shifted the direction. Valerie was rarely short on spirit and enthusiasm in whatever task she may have chosen – an iridescent quality that glowed and influenced many globally towards the conservation cause. After retiring from spearfishing, Valerie and Ron ventured into underwater photography at a time when hardly anyone knew about it, had little interest and virtually no gear or resources to support it. In hindsight it now appears as a natural course for one who so loved the water. Yet in the same hindsight it also illuminates for us, the spirit of this woman that followed the yearnings of her heart beyond reason. It appears that long before Nike used their tagline, ‘Just Do It’, Valerie was already living it to the hilt!

Her adventurous spirit was rarely ever reckless or senseless, for her simple moral compass remained rooted through the test of time. There are many ‘firsts’ in Valerie’s life that now make her an icon in the imagery and conservation fields. Besides being the beautiful and charming model, for Ron’s photography, Valerie educated herself in the art of being both in front and behind the camera. Her spirited enthusiasm inspired Ron to design a housing for her, way before the purpose designed ones we have now; the stepping stones that eventually brought forth her award winning imagery for a better world. Valerie concentrated on underwater still photography and received excellent exposure in the National Geographic’s June 1973 issue including her picture on the cover holding the camera and macro attachments Ron designed and built. Valerie’s photographs also featured in other leading world publications such as Readers Digest, Stern, Life, The Bulletin and numerous diving publications. She was also contracted to shoot photographs in the Virgin Islands for Time-Life’s American Wilderness series of books amongst the many other challenging assignments to come.

“I never made a conscious decision to make a life out of diving with cameras, but it was Ron’s dream”, she recollects. It rarely was just about herself and her dreams; her simplicity had a way of converging dreams rather than diverging them. The early days were tough as echoed in her remark,” publishers were not interested in fish pictures; they wanted sharks, preferably with people in their mouths”. ….and so the sharks beckoned, not so much by design, but just the flow of events in the tide of life.

In 1974 Ron and Valerie filmed the live shark sequences for Jaws. This led to their shark sequences appearing in several “shark” productions, the best known being the Wild, Wild World of Animals TV series plus other notable feature films including Orca and The Blue Lagoon. Also that year, Valerie played one of the four main characters in the exciting American feature film, Blue Water, White Death. The Taylor’s were also responsible for sending the film crew to South Australia to find and film the Great White Shark. …it was just her initiation into the world of sharks. Converging dreams that drove superlative synergy, found Ron creating and inventing devices like the chain mail suit and shark repellers that even a shark bite in 1979 has not deterred Valerie from swimming with them.

In 1992, the Taylor’s went to South Africa to film the National Geographic’s Blue Wilderness series, where they also tested an electronic shark repelling barrier. Swimming with the tide of life, when the cage broke in a storm, the Taylors with Stan Waterman and Peter Gimbel became the first people to ever film Great White Sharks underwater without a cage. Interestingly, though assignments were planned, many of the outcomes were not. After a dive trip to the Coral Islands, upon learning of mining claims, the Taylors persuaded the Australian Federal Government to protect the birds that breed there; Shadow over the Reef, an adventure film about swimming with Whale Sharks at Ningaloo Reef, in Western Australia, co-produced by the Taylor’s in 1993 was used to stop the drilling for oil inside the Ningaloo marine National Park. In early 1982, the 47 minute film, The Wreck of the Yongala, (a wreck Valerie considers, the most spectacular she has ever dived on), was used to have the Yongala and its marine life made a protected area. Earlier in 1982 Ron and Valerie fought both the Queensland Government and National Parks to have the rare and friendly Potato Cod of Cormorant Pass on the Barrier Reef protected, over and above their founding of the Cod Hole in 1971 which is now one of the top dive attractions on the Barrier Reef. In April 1991, working with author Peter Benchley and the American film maker Stan Waterman, a TV special was produced about the tragic decline of White Sharks; and the list goes on and will probably go on as long as she lives and breathes.

The Taylors home is adorned with souvenirs, gifts and awards of sorts collected over 50 years and more. They’ve also met their fair share of famous icons from royalty to celebrities in the music and movie world. In 1984, in Laussanne, Switzerland, at an underwater image festival, her long awaited dream of meeting one she so admired and respected, came true in the personal encounter with Hans, and Lotti Hass. Does the string of awards, accolades, fame and goodwill of friends and contemporaries call for a rest and retirement? For the ordinary, it probably would. This is no ordinary woman; a simple person with child-like curiosity and adventurous spirit she may be, but in her lives a spirit of the ocean, constantly flowing, working with the wind and the beings within, enriching the earth in thought, word and deed. A beautiful friend she is; a friend who turned my fear of snakes into an appreciation; who has the time of day for the casual wit or to just shoot the breeze or visiting her nephew’s dive resort in Komodo, Indonesia. Valerie is as ordinary as they come, yet extraordinary in her love to protect and conserve all that we have.

Most accounts of this extraordinary woman would list all her achievements and accolades; I’ve mentioned only some. Many articles about her burnish the great things she has done and achieved; I’ve mentioned some. In my humble attempt, I wish to share the person inside these wonderful and great deeds, a beautiful person, a faithful friend who by her life and living, brings out the greatness in each of us, be it animal or human. ….and this is the essence of Valerie Taylor, my friend, my teacher, a friend of the living world, a woman of great substance.