How Dorothy Owens Brought Star Trek to the UK
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| Title: | How Dorothy Owens Brought Star Trek to the UK |
| Creator: | Rachel Perkins for StarTrek.com |
| Date(s): | September 8, 2021 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Star Trek: TOS |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | How Dorothy Owens Brought Star Trek to the UK; archive link |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
How Dorothy Owens Brought Star Trek to the UK is a 2021 essay by Rachel Perkins, Dorothy Owens' granddaughter.
It has the subtitle: "Memories of the Empathy Star Trek Club and TerraCon give us insight into this amazing superfan's life."
Some Topics Discussed
- fandom as a family affair
- Star Trek: TOS, early fandom, the very first fan clubs and conventions in the UK
- Empathy Star Trek Club
- The British Star Trek Convention (1974 & 1975 cons), TerraCon, and many more conventions
- the camaraderie, generosity of the early cons and their guests
Excerpts
In almost all the ways, Dorothy "Dot" Owens broke the traditions for what society stereotyped as a “nerd." She was a mother to five daughters and a grandmother, who lived in a small house in Yorkshire, England, with her husband Joe, and her German Shepherd, Sheba. She wore her hair short and in curls, picked out pastel patterns to wear, and worked in retail — sometimes surviving paycheck to paycheck.
This otherwise typical woman just also happened to be the chairperson for a number of UK-based Star Trek fanzines as well as an organizer of several Star Trek conventions across England in the 1970s and ‘80s. Her events drew in international Star Trek stars such as George Takei and D.C. Fontana, as well as other familiar names in the Science Fiction circles, such as Hugo-award winner Anne McCaffrey, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy writer Douglas Adams.
...for my family, what started as a small semi-regular fanzine was about to become something a lot bigger.The club began publishing new magazines such as Emanon, Contact, Tricorder, and Empathy News, the goal of which was to bring fans together. Poems, short stories, sketches, and articles were published in these periodicals— a celebration of passion and creativity that the excitement of new Trek movies and the original episodes brought. 80 pence bought an annual subscription of the regular publications, which would cover the cost of printing, with an additional 40p for special anthologies, which ran alongside. Individual issues would range anywhere between fifty to one hundred pages.
Running the magazines soon became a bigger venture. In the family home, there was a collection of stamps from subscribers, and the storage upstairs was filled with boxes of paper awaiting printing. Their first typewriter was a portable Smith Corona, used to make the stencils for the magazine. While the entire house was a base of operations for the club, the kitchen was where printing took place as it housed the stencil duplicator (also known as the mimeograph machine). Initially a manually operated Roneo brand, it was later upgraded to a Gestetner, before going electric in the 1980s. The kitchen was chosen because printing would last long into the night and the following morning. That way the noise didn’t disturb others’ sleep.
After five “official” conventions and several smaller local gatherings, Dot announced that she would retire from organizing after TerraCon 1980. For the last adventure, the con returned to the Dragonara Hotel in Leeds, with special guest D.C. Fontana, who stayed at Dot’s house during her visit to the UK. As well as taking part in community events and talks throughout the weekend, Fontana also made a surprise appearance in cosplay at the fashion show, which she helped to judge.
The event was a success, and ended with a closing ceremony that was described in a follow up report in the Beyond Antares newsletter as “charged with emotion.” It went on to state, “those members who have never been to a convention, or who don’t know Dot, may wonder why she was given such a huge send off… Dot contributed greatly to the British fandom by arranging five excellent conventions – three in Leeds, one in Liverpool, and one in Manchester, plus many small gatherings for fans”.
But Dot’s retirement was short-lived. While TerraCon never returned, and other “official” British conventions took its place, she did return to event organizing with another committee member, Keith Jackson, for a final two conventions dubbed EmpathicCon.
By the second convention, TerraCon had started to attract the attention of the local and national newspapers, including the Daily Express who headlined an article “Trekkers Beaming For Show” the day ahead of the convention. The piece closed with a quote from Dot explaining her passion for Trek in a rare interview: “It’s basically about peace. If 400 people on a starship can live peacefully then there’s hope for the rest of the world.”
Dorothy Owens passed away from cancer in the late hours of February 1st 1984. Despite difficulties with her illness, she continued to work to arrange her final convention, EmpathicCon II. Upon her request, her collection of Star Trek magazines were donated to a convention auction further down the line, with the amount raised going to a nearby children’s hospital. The event continued in her memory, organized by the Empathy committee, stewards, and her family.
On the convention program’s first page, which was usually reserved for community creations reads simply a paraphrase of Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, “There are no strangers here - only friends you have yet to meet.” With these words dedicated to her memory, Dot’s spirit was ensured to live on.