This chapter is about remembering to lift our eyes a little — to the sky, the stars, the weather, the changing light — and to notice how much bigger life can feel when we stop staring only at what is directly in front of us.
A few thoughts about perspective, wonder, and the quiet comfort of looking up.
PS - I may mention Star Trek!
SPEAKER_00
Hello again and welcome. This week I'll be sharing another story that is drawn from my own real life and from the people I've met and moments that I've witnessed. As I always remind you, sometimes they're remembered exactly as they were, other times, well, time has softened those memories. But every time I tell you a story, I try to make sure it's told with kindness and care. And all these stories are found in big skies and small ponds. Chapter 13 Looking Up You're going to have to indulge me a little this week, because we're going into outer space. You see, this voyage of self-discovery, or perhaps rediscovery, feels as though it could benefit from a little Vulcan logic and perhaps a touch of cling on passion. So yes, we're going to boldly go. But go where? Well, we'll see. Are we actually heading out into space? Or are we discovering what all those years of searching for the final frontier help me to understand? Yes, I am an unapologetic trekkie. I started watching Star Trek when I was eight or nine years old, and I've been watching it ever since. Of course, as is so often the case, the reasons I watched as a child and the reasons I watch as an adult are rather different. Back then it was the strange new worlds, alien species, and adventures in space, that clearly defined hero and villain scenario that played out every week. A natural progression for a boy who'd grown up watching Westerns. The cast of the original series became real heroes to me, and I count myself very fortunate that eventually I got to meet many of them and thank them in person for the joy they had brought into my life. I might even tell you about a couple of those meetings before this chapter ends. The man I never got to meet was Gene Roddenbury, the man who created the world in which Kirk, Spock, and so many others could exist, or perhaps coexist would be a better word, because Roddenbury didn't simply create a television program. He gave well he gave us an imagined future and a philosophy. It was a place where many of the social divisions of the 1960s had been left behind. A future without poverty, racism, or prejudice. Well, that was the ideal. And across the years, Star Trek has continued to evolve through new generations. As I wrote this chapter in 2026, Mrs. B and I have been watching Starfleet Academy as well as Strange New Worlds. We love them both. The news that Star Trek Starfleet Academy will be ending after its second series is disappointing, but you know, some stories don't last as long as we'd like. If a story has helped somebody feel seen though, to be understood or simply less alone, then it has already done its job, and I tell you what, you can't cancel that. Star Trek has always given us great characters, and in my opinion it still does. They may come from faraway worlds, but there is a humanity about them, in its best and widest sense, at least until the Klingons kick off, and that's because the stories carry a strong moral thread, one you can trace all the way back to Roddenberry's original vision. It is storytelling that hits home, especially when you are open to its possibilities, the possibilities that there is room in this universe for everyone. Infinite diversity in infinite combinations. Now it might well surprise you to learn that when I was in the past shaping funeral services, nominally non-religious ones, I did on occasion draw inspiration from all sorts of philosophical ideas, including the philosophy of Star Trek. Now I didn't shoehorn it into a funeral where it didn't belong or serve any purpose, but on those occasions when I knew it was going to work, then I let it do its work. It was especially useful when leading services for a fellow Treke. Well, it was only right to include it for them. But there are many lines in Trek Law that sit naturally within a funeral service. One of my favourite comes after the death of Spock in Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan. Oh sorry, I should have said spoiler alert. Well, at that point in the film, after he has died, we are reminded that someone isn't truly gone as long as they're remembered. It's such a simple thought, and where appropriate, a lovely one on which to end a service. Many years later, Patrick Stewart, playing the amazing Jean-Luc Picard, spoke about time and how some people see time as a hunter, a predator, but he suggested that time is actually a companion that travels beside us, reminds us to cherish the moments that will never come again. And hopefully you can see how that sentiment might find a place in a funeral service, especially one that celebrates the life and the memories that have been created along the way. Yes, Star Trek has a lot of good things to say and to remind us of. Big skies and small ponds with Drew Baxter. In the 21 years that I led funeral services, I was uh never asked to cosplay. It does happen. Celebrant might dress up as a character from a television programme or some other cultural reference, Elvis, for example. There was once a vague suggestion that I might dress as Gandalf for a Lord of the Rings funeral, but it it never happened. And I do think you have to be careful. But I was open to the idea, of course. But I do own a Star Trek tie and a pelpin, which I've worn on occasion, just a small nod to something the person loved, and to a passion we happened to share. It's remarkable when you think about it how often we can find something we share with another person, isn't it? Besides our humanity. Although perhaps that should be enough. My lovely friend Andrew Keats is a theatre director and a fellow lover of Star Trek. He is much younger than I am, so his first encounters were with the later generation of Picard, Riker and Troy. And Andrew has spoken to me and publicly many times about what Star Trek meant to him as a young gay man growing up and feeling quite isolated. It offered him the hope that one day he might be accepted just as he was. Those characters became his friends, and these days he is actually friends with some of the cast, not least Marina Curtis, who I tell you is an absolute beautiful force of nature. I've shared lovely times with Andrew at conventions, chatting with fellow travellers, who also discovered something inclusive and welcoming within the Star Trek universe. People who found a place where they would be accepted just as they are. Now perhaps you've begun to suspect that this chapter isn't really about Star Trek after all. It's about finding comfort, hope, and support in whatever way works for you, in life and in death. There are many philosophies from which we can gather wisdom, and I don't think we should close off any road through grief simply because we can't read the signpost. Because it's written in Vulcan or Klingon. I've overdone the metaphor, haven't I? Oh well. There's probably a lesson in that too. So let's briefly give the last word to a time lord rather than a Starfleet officer. The doctor tells us that in the end we are all stories, so we should make ours a good one. Wise man that doctor. And of all the souls I have encountered in my travels across the galaxy, at this country, the person I was most sorry never to meet was Leonard Nemoy, Mr Spock. I did have the brilliant pleasure of meeting his son Adam, and was able to tell him about the place his father's work had won in my heart. The same was true when I met Chris Dewin, the son of James Dewin, Scotty, who was secretly one of my favourite characters. And they do say you should never meet your heroes, and yet I've been lucky enough to meet many of mine, and with very, very few exceptions, which I shall not discuss, I have found those meetings very rewarding, often in ways I hadn't expected. Do you know I once waited for more than an hour to meet the late Michelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura, an icon, a trailblazer in so many ways. Actually I'd been waiting longer than an hour because I was determined to be first in the queue. Eventually the great lady arrived, full of apologies because someone had forgotten to send a car to collect her. She was radiant, she was beautiful, and I was already emotional at the thought of just meeting her. So as I approached, she apologised once again for keeping me waiting, and to this day I don't know where these words came from, but I said to her I've waited fifty years. What's another hour? She got up from behind her desk, came round to me and enveloped me in a huge hug. I was absolutely done for. It remains one of my greatest memories. A more poignant meeting was with Walter Koenig, who played Chekhov in the original series. When we met he was subdued. He had recently lost his son. As I waited, he looked up from beneath the brim of his hat and asked my name, and I answered Drew. He sat very still for a second or two, then he looked at me again and said my son's name was Drew. And he reached across the table and took my hand. And we simply sat there in silence before I left. Do meet your heroes. They may not remember you in the years that follow. They may not remember the meeting at all, but you will. And perhaps that's enough. Never underestimate the power of a hug or a hand held in silence to communicate more than words ever could, in any language, in any philosophy, on any world. Yes. On any world. Not only because I've spent a lifetime looking towards the sky and wondering what might lie beyond it, but because Star Trek taught so many of us to look beyond what was immediately in front of us, to look beyond the prejudices of the present, beyond loneliness, beyond grief, towards the possibility that things might become better, and that there might just be a place for every one of us if we all did that. Perhaps looking up is simply a small, quiet way of reminding ourselves that there is always more that we can see if we decide to look. And sometimes when our heads are down, all we have to do is look up because we might discover that somebody else is looking back. Perhaps they smile, perhaps they open their arms, or perhaps without saying a word, they reach out and take our hand. But until then, do take care. In fact, perhaps I should say live long and prosper. But whatever. Do enjoy writing and living your own story.
