Hello I'm Krestey Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1992,

and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway for Christmas is a scientist. He didn't excel at school but won a scholarship to Oxford.

Once there he worked for the equivalent of one hour a day and got a first.

Shortly after his 21st birthday he was told that he was suffering from motor

neuron disease and had only a few years to live. This discovery transformed apathy

into enthusiasm and today 30 years later he's achieved recognition

as one of the greatest theoretical scientists since Einstein.

Although he's defied that original prognosis for his life, his physical condition has deteriorated.

He's almost totally paralyzed and can only communicate through a voice synthesizer.

He is the best-selling author of a brief history of time, Stephen Hawking.

In many ways, of course Stephen you're already familiar with the isolation of a desert island,

cut off from normal physical life and deprived of any natural means of communication.

How lonely is it for you?

I don't regard myself as cut off from normal life and I don't think people around me would say I was.

I don't feel a disabled person, just someone with certain malfunctions of my motor neurons, rather

as if I were colorblind.

I suppose my life can hardly be described as usual, but I feel it is normal in spirit.

Nevertheless, you've really already proved to yourself, unlike most castaways on Desert Island

discs, that you are mentally and intellectually self-sufficient, haven't you?

That you've got enough theories and inspiration to keep yourself occupied.

...