At three years old I got a Dalek outfit for Christmas. It was quite clear that if I was excited by Daleks then the next logical step was to be one. But I didn't want to be a Dalek ... except when I was playing. However, I did really want to be Batman (as portrayed in the sixties by Adam West) and Ed Straker (head man of alien defence organisation SHADO, in Gerry Anderson's UFO, dynamically portrayed by the late Ed Bishop).

When I was a child, merchandising tied into my childhood desires, sometimes with toy guns like in the shows, and occasionally a mask or outfit. These days you can even role-play in video games, recreating the series virtually. However, whilst these games are fun, some of us wanted to go further.

At school I made a Batman utility belt by spraying cigarette boxes black, adding a coloured dot to identify them, and sticky-backed velcro to make them attach and detach from the belt. So not a direct copy, but a cheap way of realising a great idea. It even amused the security guards at Heathrow airport when they found it, on my way to visit my Aunt in America in 1976.

Next up was hair. I took a big picture of Ed Straker (from the back of the 1970 UFO annual) into a hairdresser and asked for a cut like that. I walked out feeling a million dollars. I remember my Dad being really annoyed with me that I was copying someone else's style rather than having my own, but I think after 20 years or so he began to realise that it genuinely was my chosen style. I rounded it off with a polo neck jumper and a tank top that made it look a bit like I was wearing one of his futuristic suits.

That led to more clothes. I was a regular jumble sale enthusiast in the seventies and enjoyed flirting with a wide range of styles. A long black priest's coat (60p, Acton High Street) was the nearest I got to the Straker 'Nehru'-style. Sixth-formers at my school were allowed to choose their clothes if of restrained colour and style. I wore my new Straker coat to school and was nearly expelled for my trouble. My big advances in clothing came in 1980 and 1982 when I bought surplus clothes from Bermans & Nathans theatrical costumiers (called Angels these days), including outfits from James Bond, Space:1999 and various weird stuff that I couldn't recognise.

For years I wore a one-piece beige jump suit until one Sunday afternoon I saw it on the lead character in Moon Zero Two, Hammer's only foray into sci-fi. In the early nineties I took a UFO photo-book to India and had 12 suits made for me in the UFO-style at about £60 a time. Subsequently I've had authentic suits and costumes made for me at anything from £200 to £500. They are still sometimes cheaper and fit better than their off-the-peg equivalent in mainstream shops.

As my Dad was a painter and decorator, my ambitions evolved into decor ideas. My Dad papered a spare room with offcut posters of 'Destination Moonbase Alpha' that I'd picked up at a Fanderson Gerry Anderson convention. When I moved to a house in the nineties I made a feature of seventies white plastic furnishings that looked like the Italian ones used in Space:1999. However, my big idea was to recreate part of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise in my lounge.

As a child I'd always thought that the ultimate 'entertainments' room would be like the bridge of the Enterprise. You would sit in the Captain's chair and watch TV on the big screen, maybe setting the video over at Spock's desk. My house had an extension on the back that left one windowless room in the middle. Although not as big as the Enterprise I thought it might be possible to try something with it. I discussed the idea with my photographer friend Nick Simpson over a drink and by a bizarre coincidence he immediately introduced me to a friend of his who had worked on set design. He had matched the set of Star Wars for an advert for 'Tunes' menthol sweets. In the advert, one of Darth Vader's officers suggests one of the sweets for his sore throat. This 'new' footage was spliced into the original.

Nick's friend used my Starfleet Technical manual and suggested creating a full size 'Spock's desk' along one wall in MDF. It was very impressive but once the basic shape was there he lost energy for the project. It sat unpainted for several years until my good friend Terry Hassett finished it off, with colours and some flashing lights and switches from cars, amongst other origins. It is a source of immense pleasure to sit on the Captain's sofa and watch shows projected onto a 5 foot square piece of wall in front of me, listening to hi-fi sound. I sit with Spock's desk to my left, housing not only cable, video and hifi devices, but also storing records, videos, DVDs and more from my collection. I can even switch the screen to a computer and play games (Star Trek pinball anyone?) on the big screen.

All in all I would say it is fun and liberating to bring the styles and ideas of other worlds - that you choose - into yours. And it certainly beats being told what is 'in fashion' by sterile retail corporations.

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Parsley the Lion's own website is gardenrecords.com and he can be contacted via parsley@gardenrecords.com