Well I have some sad news and this is especially sad for Canadians. James Doohan, a native of BC, the man who played Montgomery Scott and (usually) safely beamed Captain Kirk around the galaxy, died on Wednesday. He was 85. My parents were big into Star Trek but I was raised on Next Generation and 'Earl Gray tea, hot'. But my parents had watched the original and I was first introduced to it with the Tribble episode (note to self: Tribbles = large vet bill).
I loved his accent and the number of times he yelled into the intercom to Kirk, "The ship, she canna' take it captain!"
He was a D-Day veteran, a captain in fact but was badly wounded by a German machine gun. After this he moved on to study drama in Toronto before becoming that famous ship's engineer. He had a difficult childhood with his father being an alcoholic.
Now I was interested to learn that the fictional birth place of his character was planning to erect a plaque in his honour. Scripts of the cult science fiction series reveal that Mr Doohan's character, Montgomery Scott, was born in Linlithgow in 2222 and that his parents still lived there. Now, West Lothian Council is planning to erect a plaque in the town in tribute to the actor, a Canadian D-Day veteran. At least, I was interested until I learned that they were only doing it for commerical reasons to attract tourists. I'm sure Scotty would be ashamed of his home town. Some people just have no respect for the dearly departed. Councillor Willie Dunn said: "Star Trek is a cult classic which has thousands of fans all over the world and I am one of them. A local link with Star Trek could help attract even more visitors to West Lothian in the future."
Mr. Doohan's wife Wende says that his ashes will likely be flown into space on the Falcon 1 rocket. We'll miss you Scotty.
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