In 1976 I remember, that I was given, my first Star Trek novel as a present by my mother and father. You need to know something of the era, it sounds silly to say this but in terms of Star Trek collecting, it might as well have been the 1950’s before Star Trek was even created.
I was still at school and home use videocassette recorders were a thing of the future, in fact I had only recently seen my first hand-held “pocket” calculator, a wonderful thing about the size of a small car. Technology including our television was primitive, I had no idea for the first few years that Captain Kirk’s shirt was at times green, for me it was clearly, various shades of grey. You see our “telly was an old gas powered black and white fossil.
The front cover had Mr Spock prominently placed with a blue shirt and black trousers, this too was a slight surprise as I had previously thought that like in the Navy of the time everyone’s clothes were relatively, “uniform” in colour.
At this time, I had no idea that Star Trek would ever return, so set about gathering a few memento’s to mark its passing. I managed to find a shop that still stocked plastic model kits of the Enterprise and bought one to build over the weekend. On the side of the box, was a picture of both Kirk and Spock that showed the Captains Gold uniform shirt and the colour of a hand phaser, another small pleasure for me to discover.
I decided that if a magazine existed with colour pictures of the ship and crew, I would get a hold of it and feast my eyes. Such a magazine did indeed become known to me, I bought as many as I could before it disappeared from the news-stands. This was the monthly Star Trek poster magazine of which I still have about ten issues. This magazine was like Christmas every month for me, no one else at school or outside my family seemed to want to share my enthusiasm for a dead “kids” television series and even the family grew a little bored eventually. The mag came to my rescue, sadly eventually it ended, in fact at the time for me, it only lasted for three issues as the newsagent could not get any more.
A supermarket in my hometown, which specialised in out of stock, reduced price items, somehow got a hold of a consignment of 8” Star Trek action figures. For a week I knew that they were available but due to my age couldn’t bring myself to buy one, my inhibitions in this have long since vanished and I often stoop to inventing children to pretend to be buying things for. Not that anyone bats an eyelid these days. I bought the Kirk, Spock, Mc’Coy and Scotty dolls and stood them proudly on my bookcase at home.
The next couple of years were bleak from a collecting point of view as my local book shops did not seem to regularly get Star Trek books, however I was dispatched to a college in Birmingham for the latter part of 1978 and the early part of 1979. The best part of this was that I gained access to the Forbidden Planet shop that was on the outskirts of the city. I still had not seen an episode of the original series in colour at this time so purchased the Fotonovel series for the staggering sum of 75p each. This time in my life was a little bit sad as I did not enjoy my course nor did I enjoy living in such a big city. Perhaps my interest in Star Trek became something of a substitute for the comforts of home at this time? Along with the Fotonovels I bought the James Blish adaptations and a few more novels.
Towards the end of 1979 I came home and discovered that in my absence the family had acquired the first of many to come, a colour television set. I could hardly wait to see my favourite show in colour and so rediscovered each and every episode of the next set of repeats on the B.B.C.
1979 was also a watershed year as you are no doubt aware because of the release of the Motion Picture. To me the market seemed flooded, poster books, novels, manuals, action figures, lunch boxes, blueprints and all manner of unaffordable items appeared with alarming rapidity.
Many of these items did not interest me and many more were simply beyond my price range, but it was pleasant to have so much choice.
I did buy the small action figures and another model kit of the newly refitted Enterprise, additionally appropriate as my ship had come to grief some months earlier.
I also bought a copy of the space flight chronology, incidentally we have already fallen behind but at least the third world war hasn’t yet occurred as it was predicted in this volume. A novel entitled “The Entropy Effect” was released in this year to cash in on the success of the first movie; I have this book too. This was the book that gave Sulu a first name, Hikaru for those of you who like trivia. This year was also good for quiz books as I managed to get a hold of two and old one and a newly released one including movie trivia.
In early 1983, I bought my first videotape of a Star Trek segment. Two of them contained the so-called banned episodes. These episodes did not appear on television until at least ten years later, unfortunately at the time I did not have a machine to play them on. Soon after I bought a copy of Star Trek two the wrath of Khan and about a year later secured my first video recorder. In 1986 the best collectable of all for me came on the market. The entire run, of the original series on VHS I bought the lot, and for the first time ironically, I saw the banned episodes. My previous copies were on Betamax.
I was most surprised with the episode “The Empath”. This story did indeed carry strong visual imagery that might have disturbed some viewers. The most powerful of the banned stories was “Plato’s Stepchildren”, as the torture was made to appear all the more vivid as it even affected the previously unflappable Mr Spock, along with the temporary, loss of dignity for the rest of our heroes. This story even today is not one of the first that I choose when I want to relax with Star Trek on the screen.
The 1980’s peaked in many ways with the release of Star Trek 4 and the acceptance of the fact that Star Trek was not just for spotty geeks but the public at large. The new series was released to critical and fan acclaim onto video and later on Sky television and the rest, as they say is history.
It seems strange now to look back on these times as we approach a time when most people who want them have copies of every Star Trek episode that was ever made. For many people these apparently insignificant items kept alive for many, the dream of going to the stars and creating a better world, than the one that we lived in at the time.
I have kept all my Star Trek items and have added many more, none of my latter acquisitions gives me as much pleasure as the pieces that I bought when cash was at a premium and items were hard to find, perhaps that’s the nature of collecting?