AFTER 21 years of pounding the streets as a postie, one man is proving he has the write stuff to fulfil his ambition.

It’s only two years since Steve Taylor was struck down with a rare and debilitating condition called Guillain-Barre Syndrome which causes partial paralysis.

Usually triggered by an infection, it strikes only one or two people in 100,000.

The condition, which was discovered by French physicians Georges Guillain and Jean Alexandre Barre in 1916, meant even simple tasks such as writing left the dad-of-two in pain.

Steve, who is married to Angela, and has two children, Joe, four, and Tara, two, underwent weeks of hospital treatment, before returning home to Homedale Court, Hexham to begin his recovery.

He said: “At first, the doctors thought I had sciatica, then they finally diagnosed it.

“I was in hospital in Newcastle and then Hexham for several weeks, then in a wheelchair.

“For an active bloke like myself, a postie who used to play Sunday morning football and all sorts, it was terrible, and physically I was getting very tired. For seven months I was on 40 tablets a day.”

But despite being wheelchair-bound, Steve, 45 was not going to be beaten by the condition and he set to work writing his first book.

He said: “I joined two writing forums and suddenly from one of them I was getting feedback from complete strangers.

He said: “Before the illness, I had been writing about my trips to the States for my own amusement on the computer, but then I thought ‘why don’t I do it as a book?’

“I was able to use my hands, if not a lot else, and my mind and memory were OK, so I set to it.

“It wasn’t easy, and I could only work in short periods. At times I had to stand at the bench because of the pain, but I told myself before I started that I had to get through it – and I did.

“Writing the book gave me a focus instead of sitting there thinking ‘what’s wrong with me’; it gave me a target in what were difficult times, and it’s great to see the book published.”

Steve’s book is a 362-page softback called Hot Dogs, Pretzels And An American Adventure. It is available to buy in Hexham bookshop Cogito, as well as online.

Guillain-Barre Syndrome affects the peripheral nervous system beginning in the feet or hands and moving into the body trunk.

Steve said: “It all started with a feeling of numbness in the feet and it kept rising from there.

“There’s no treatment for it, and they can only try to ease the symptoms.

“The good thing is that the vast majority of people do recover from it.

“I was given ill-health retirement from the Post Office, but I’ve since got some nightshift work at Tesco and since August, I’ve been working as a porter at Hexham Hospital.”