Scots mum forecast his stellar career
HaWKinG’s scottish mother was the first to predict his scientific greatness – and expected him to reach for the stars.
Glasgow-born isobel Hawking bought an astronomical atlas as she waited for stephen, her first child, to be born in wartime oxford.
isobel, who had been sent to oxford to escape the German bombing of london, came to see it is a prophetic purchase – a symbol of her unborn child’s future.
at an early age, stephen began to show a passion for science and the sky, although his medical researcher father Frank wanted him to be a doctor.
isobel often sat in the back yard on summer evenings and stared up at the stars with her son.
she once recalled: “stephen always had a strong sense of wonder and i could see that the stars would draw him.”
as he grew up in st albans, his obvious intelligence saw him dubbed einstein by his schoolmates.
But his life was never all work and no play – and he revelled in the social life he enjoyed at oxford and cambridge universities.
isobel, the daughter of a Glasgow Gp, was herself an oxford philosophy, politics and economics graduate, although she struggled to find suitable work because of society’s attitude to working women at the time.
she said of her son’s attitude to his studies and life: “He liked parties. He liked pretty girls – only pretty ones. He liked adventure and he did, to some extent, like work.”
that verdict predicted one aspect of Hawking’s life after his monumental work in cosmology won him fame.
He loved to rub shoulders with the famous and was delighted by the “rock star” status he achieved. He also continued to be fascinated by women.
“they are a complete mystery,” he said around the time of his 70th birthday, admitting he still spent much of the day thinking about the opposite sex.
Hawking’s mother died in 2013, aged 98, the year before he won greater fame when his extraordinary life was immortalised in the theory of everything.
He joined actor eddie redmayne, who played him in the film, on the red carpet after the actor won a Bafta for the role.
Hawking also made numerous comedy cameos in the simpsons, the Big Bang theory, and alongside david Walliams in a little Britain-inspired sketch for comic relief.
U2 enlisted him to record a special voiceover to open their paris concert in 2015, while pink Floyd used his voice on their final studio album the division Bell.
redmayne, who also won an oscar for his portrayal of the scientist, said it was a moment off camera that best summed up his appeal.
He recalled how Hawking visited the set one day, just as the crew were filming a spectacular firework show.
He said: “stephen arrived with his iconic silhouette – him in his chair, flanked by his nurses, uplit by his computer screen.
“there was this extraordinary spotlight on him. then on cue the fireworks went off. it was the greatest rock star entrance i’ve seen in my life.”