20 YEARS OF

Having just turned 21, Stephen Hawking had a bright future ahead of him. But then doctors gave him the shattering news that he had motor neurone disease. And they gave him just two years to live.

He defied the odds but the cruel disease would slowly rob him of everything others took for granted. He’d be left unable to walk, talk, eat… But his brilliant mind would be left intact.

A magnificent academic, he was doing research in cosmology at the University of Cambridge when he was diagnosed in 1963.

Yet as his body began to fail him, Stephen’s astonishing mind grappled with the laws that govern the universe, exploring time, space, black holes and the Big Bang theory.

And the prospect of an early death inspired the scholar to push himself further. “Before my condition was diagnosed, I had been very bored with life,” he said.

“I suddenly realised that there were a lot of worthwhile things I could do if I was reprieved.”

And despite the disease, Stephen went on to have three children and an astounding career.

A scientist, professor and author, he constantly considered the biggest questions facing humanity – How did life begin? Can we travel through time?

He wrote A Brief History of Time, selling 10 million copies and received our Lifetime Achievement gong at the 2016 Pride of Britain Awards. Earlier that year, his black hole theory had finally been accepted by the scientific community. Prof Stephen Hawking died aged 76 in March 2018. But his work and legacy will live on.