THEY’VE boldly been where few pants have been before!

Now an outfit worn in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation by award-winning Mirfield-born actor and Huddersfield University chancellor, Patrick Stewart, is expected to fetch up to £600 when it is auctioned in London.

The outfit, which will be auctioned at Christie's South Kensington on December 19, is a long-sleeved shirt of beige textured linen and brown trousers.

They were worn by Stewart’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard, in the Risa resort sequence in Captain's Holiday, an episode from the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation – for Trekkie fans, this episode introduced the character of Vash, who also appeared in the later TNG episode, Q-Pid.

Stewart ,who was born at Mirfield on July 13, 1940, and who was educated at the former Mirfield Secondary Modern School, a detail he proudly mentions in his Who’s Who entry, once said of his life in Star Trek: The Next Generation: “It was almost entirely a blessing.

“It introduced me to a world I never expected to be part of – celebrity, fame, financial success. It also gave me the chance to work with the finest group of people I’ve ever known.”

Stewart, whose mother was Mirfield weaver Gladys Barrowclough, was recently voted Best Actor in the London Evening Standard Theatre Awards for his performance in Macbeth.

The actor, a lifelong Huddersfield Town fan, talks affectionately about his days in Star Trek: The Next Generation, the role which made him internationally famous.

He said: “All of those years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, all of the years of playing kings and princes and speaking blank verse and bestriding the landscape of England was nothing but a preparation for sitting in the captain’s chair of the Enterprise.”

It was also through Star Trek: The Next Generation, that he met and married his second wife, Wendy Neuss, a producer of the hit television series, but this brief marriage ended in divorce.

Stewart,67, now lives with award-winning actress Lisa Dillon, who has been appearing in the BBC TV costume drama, Cranford, with Dame Judi Dench and Sir Michael Gambon.