The Times gave the new Star Trek film a five-star rave review this week. I can’t wait to see it. Because – tearing off my false beard and whiskers – I can reveal that I was a Total Trekkie, a Star Trek fan.
It started at school. In a world where everyone is bombarded with TV – freeview, cable, sky, a wealth of channels both terrestrial and satellite and if you miss anything, hop onto You Tube or I-Player – it’s hard to remember there were only two channels. What was on telly the night before was a hardy staple of playground conversations, mainly because we’d all seen much the same thing. Star Trek which was up against Coronation Street, (then pulling audiences of 17 million or so) was watched by a motivated minority. Even Captain Kirk's famous voice-over seemed edgy and exciting; it asked us To Boldy Go. Not only was it a split inifinitve - which made me ask why on earth an infinitive shouldn't be split if it made the sentence sound better (ie literary criticism) but at my rather old-fashinoned school the worst offence you could commit was to be Bold. You Bold Girl! was said in tones of horror. And there's Captain Kirk urging us on. It was the first time I’d ever been really conscious of belonging to any sort of wider group. Girls – it was an all-girls school – who you hardly knew would say things like “Live long and prosper” and give the Vulcan forked-finger salute and there you were; something in common. (I practiced Mr Spock’s salute until my fingers hurt, but I managed to do it perfectly – and can still can!)
For some reason. grown-ups, or, at least, all the ones we came in contact with, seemed to hate it. Maybe they hated it for the same reason they hated pop music. It was a world of which they had no knowledge and therefore could exert no control. In my youth it was a real cause of friction and I still can’t see what all the fuss was about. Now here you might expect me to say something like it was because the adult world loathed Trek, we loved it. Not so; and I honestly think the memory of Trek has made me a great deal more tolerant of my own teenagers’ interests. Teenagers’ interests often shade into obsessions and there’s a certain amount of nullifying boredom to be gone through but they all seem to come out the other end the right way up and more or less normal. Plus they have huge amounts of precise information on subjects such as dinosaurs, the habits of Elves and Quidditch.
In those days, long before every TV programme came with its own marketing campaign, it was with a real shock that I saw a picture of Captain Kirk on the front of a magazine in the local newsagents. Sci-Fi Monthly. Wow. And it talked about things called Star Trek fanzines. Fanzines? Again, Wow. I bought them, read them, and before you could say hyperspace had produced one of my own. This led to letters to and from all sorts of people all over the country and abroad. I’d left school by then and I think the new friends helped to fill the gap. Then Sci-Fi Monthly announced a Star Trek Convention. A Star Trek Convention!! Double Wow with knobs on. It wasn’t too expensive and it wasn’t too far away and you got to meet George Takei. 
I met friends at that convention I have to this day. The Star Trek connection has faded but the people remain. Star Trek opened up the world in a way few other things, (apart from, perhaps, University or joining the Army) ever could, in a very Trekkie sort of way. Lots of people from all over the place who didn't know you, your parents or have you wedged in a box labelled with all the things you could - or chiefly - couldn't do, because of who you were and where you lived. It couldn’t last, of course, but the effects were good and there was the odd sensation that wherever you went in the world there was a good chance you’d meet someone with who you had, as in those days at school, something in common. And it made for some very good jokes; I nearly died laughing when Comicbook Man on the Simpsons – a figure recognizable to anyone who’s been to a Convention – said, “Loneliness and cheeseburgers are a dangerous combination.” 
Even now, the old magic lingers. Louise Penny and I (Louise won the Agatha Award last week for her book, The Cruellest Month) shared a moment of pure rapture when we flashed Vulcan hand-signals at each other and realised that the other, too, had lived in Arcady.
And I was once stuck in a lift with Dr McCoy; but that’s another story! 
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