Her family life with world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking may have inspired an Oscar winning film, but Jane Hawking was in Chester today (July 9) to expound her own theory of everything.
The author, who was portrayed by actress Felicity Jones in the film of the same name, was at Chester Racecourse for the annual King’s School prizegiving ceremony.
Sharing the anecdote that her former husband declared reading novels to be ‘a waste of time’, her main message was to urge science students not to ignore what the arts have to offer and vice versa. She advised: "You may even learn something about yourself."
In deference to the Cambridge professor, she admitted that he spent his time ‘solving problems in physics’ and that Motor Neurone disease meant he had to think in ‘11 dimensions’, giving him a more than valid excuse for a lack of the love of fiction.
Making reference to the experience her family had undergone in the process of making the biopic, she had particular praise for the skill of actors including Eddie Redmayne, whose portrayal of Stephen Hawking won him an Academy Award for Best Actor, Felicity Jones and Charlie Cox, who played her second husband Jonathan Hellyer Jones. Mr Hellyer Jones was also at the ceremony.
And so the event must have been particularly poignant for students receiving prizes for physics and drama, which included upper sixth former Marissa Landy, awarded the Peter Hold Memorial Prize for Acting, the Joan Saint Memorial Prize for Singing and the Ward-Jones Prize for Music, Head Boy Laurence Ankers, awarded the Arts Committee Prize for Drama, Frances Alcock, presented with the Lower Sixth Form Physics Prize and Owen Haylock, the T W Thomas Memorial Prize for Physics.
Jane Hawking described how her husband and she had enjoyed an evening in Chester on Wednesday, celebrating the city’s treasures including the Tudor buildings, the Roman Walls and the cathedral.
She went out with a big bang by requesting headmaster Chris Ramsey grant the whole school an extra half day’s holiday next year.
The prizegiving ceremony, at the Final Furlong marquee, was opened by Chairman of Governors and former Lord Mayor of Chester Eleanor Johnson and included entertainment from students including an excerpt from the recent production of the hit musical The Producers.
