OSWESTRY’S Tallie Brazier’s two loves of sea life and football have enabled her family to fund a scholarship to a facility that named dolphins after her.
Tallie, who died in a road traffic accident in April this year, would have been due to return to Bangor University this week to begin a Masters in marine biology.
She had also interned at Sea Watch, in Ceredigion, and spotted a dolphin which, after her death, staff at the facility asked permission to name after her, with the animal’s calf given her middle name of Summer.
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Adele Nightingale, Tallie’s mother, said all the money raised from a football cup in her memory, as well as funeral donations, was given to Sea Watch to allow someone to live her dream of working with sea life.
She said: “The only thing I can attribute to is when she was two or three, her favourite Disney movie was ‘Finding Nemo’ and we must have watched hundreds of times.
“She wanted to be involved in that, in research, raising awareness and that’s why she went to Bangor.
“We take comfort that someone is going to get to live their dream because of Tallie.
“Her other love when she was growing up was football – she loved TNS and played at under-14s and 16s as a goalkeeper.
“That led to the Tallie Brazier Cup which with the money raised from that and at her funeral, this has led to the scholarship which will fund an intern.
“We’re started talking about the Cup for 2025 so the plan can be to fund an intern for the following year and we can keep up the work that she started.
“It’s really important – I don’t want her to be forgotten, she should have had a lifetime here and I’ll never forget one of her lecturers saying ‘it is for students like Tallie that I do this job’.
“It’s not just about keeping her memory alive but the memory of exactly who she was.
“We’ve had such an outpouring of love from the communities here, plus Sea Watch and Bangor, and I’m so proud of her.”
Professor Peter Evans, from Sea Watch, said he and his colleagues felt it was fitting to name the dolphins after Tallie.
He said: “I met her first when she was in Bangor and then she went to new Quay in Ceredigion and interned there.
“I met her there as well and then after he tragic death, I had lots of communication with Adele and the family and suggested that if they were to raise money, like they did, then we would set up a scholarship fund in her name.
“That will help other interns and then we thought it was a good idea, and we asked Adele and she thought it too, to have a dolphin named after her.
“By chance, the dolphin had a calf soon after and that’s when we were able to use her middle name of Summer.
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“Those of our staff who worked very closely with very much did feel the impact of her death.
“It was good that we have a permanent reminder of her work here at Sea Watch – her death affected a lot of people.”
Adele also urged people to give Sea Watch a follow on social media or by heading to www.seawatchfoundation.org.uk/cardigan-bay-monitoring-project/ and thanked people for their support, including Tallie's boyfriend and his family with whom they have remained close to.
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