From villain to heart-throb, the many loves of Captain Picard

Iprobably find it harder to admit than I should, but I have been a fan of Patrick Stewart for many years. Not only was he by far the most charismatic captain of the USS Enterprise – greater even than the sainted Shatner – but he played the evil Sejanus in I, Claudius and menacing KGB spymaster Karla in the Alec Guinness versions of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley’s People.

This means he has been in four of my favourite TV shows of all time. That’s a fair old hit rate – but press interviews, chat show appearances and his demeanour suggest that he is a thoroughly good egg.

So when the opportunity came to review his memoir, I virtually tore the phone in half.

It’s a lovely book – long, discursive but generous, kind, sometimes self-lacerating and awestruck at the remarkable turns his life has taken.

For Stewart was born not with a silver spoon in his mouth, but in West Yorkshire, northern England, in a two up, one down house with an outside toilet, where he escaped to read – and no doubt escape his father, ‘a fierce, formidable man’ whose ‘dark moods’ and violent tendencies infested the household.

From the get-go it appears Stewart was a fully paid-up heterosexual. As a nine-yearold he kissed a girl in the house’s air raid shelter, the only practical use it ever had. Thereafter it was crush followed by crush followed by crush, and then three marriages, which he now regards as probably two too many.

He also had a long affair with Jennifer Hetrick, the actress who played Vash, his love interest in a Star Trek episode called ‘Captain’s Holiday’. (There’s more about ‘Jenny’ in the book than about his second wife.)

Sunny, his third wife is a keeper. She is a singersongwriter nearly 40 years younger than him, which he regards as irrelevant, and I think we can give him that.

Overall, Patrick Stewart’s book is magnificent. I wept once or twice on public transport while reading it, and if you love Star Trek as much as I do, you might too.