Climb the Steps of Mount Seleya...

 "Kirk, I thank you. What you have done is..."

"What I have done, I had to do."

"But at what cost? Your ship, your son."

"If I hadn't tried, the cost would have been my soul."

(Kirk and Sarek. Star Trek III : the Search for Spock)

When I first crossed America in 2010, it did feel a bit like I was stealing the Enterprise for my Helen of Troy... Mind you, I only walked up Sunset Boulevard, not the slopes of Mount Seleya.

But as a metaphor, the idea of filching a starship was better than you'd think. In Star Trek III, the cast had given up trying to play young and were being their middle-aged selves. Captain Kirk was having a mid-life crisis and the Enterprise had been shot to pieces in the previous film. There was every chance their illegal mission to resurrect Spock wouldn't work, that they'd make fools of themselves, sacrifice their careers...

And they went and did it anyway.

Because Spock meant everything to Kirk and that was all there was to it.

I was forty-five, I was autistic, I'd been having a crisis at work and my brain was shot to pieces. There was every chance I could no longer perform as well as my twenty-four-year-old self had in Australia and although this mission was legal, there was every chance it would go wrong.

There'd been a bit of confusion in the beginning (who was I going over to see, Juliet or Dru, and whom did I like better?) but that quickly resolved itself. Then I saw the lines of the ship at Glasgow Airport, the blood I'd inherited from my great-grandfather (a sea captain for the Burns Line, I believe) took charge and, as well as reaching Juliet, I really wanted to get my metaphorical centre seat back.

We knew it could go seriously wrong, and Mum and I had what I always call a very British conversation about what the one would do if the other died in that month of March.

But there was still a sense of heady excitement, and I watched the clip of Kirk's spectacular theft so often I wore out YouTube.

And, as I quietly realised, it was all for Juliet.

That's just the way it was. As well as my Helen of Troy, she was also my Spock.

Against all odds, I made it. To Sunset, if not Seleya.

And she was worth every moment of it.

Over the years, I refined my personal mythology about the crossing. In the end and although it's out of sequence, I'd watch this clip from Star Trek II after the one where Kirk stole his ship.

You can see that battered old boat (recently shot to pieces) getting underway just like my battered old body had; and as they prepare for battle there's a brief shot of the crew pulling up the deck plating above the photon torpedo tubes.

Like they were running out the guns...

There's also a small but beautiful moment where Kirk's son walks onto the bridge and sees his father back in the centre seat, piloting his ship into the Mutara Nebula, once again ready to duel with the fates.

That's what it was like. Although I was hopping continents, not galaxies, I got back in the centre seat and took her out again.

For the best gal in all the world.

That was the whole story for a long time, and I bored a lot of people with it.

Then something seemed to go wrong in Hollywood, and it looked like there was nothing I could do. But I found out the facts and, rather like Kirk or Spock, found a way to help her.

And if I hadn't, the cost would indeed have been my soul.

Once again, she was worth it.

I had another look at Star Trek III, and the final scene where Spock is made whole again took on a whole new meaning for me. I knew just how a tired and weary Kirk had felt when Sarek asked him what it had cost him, but I also knew that I too had had to try.

And I'm glad I did.