The phenomenon that is Stephen Hawking died last night. His legacy was to bring science to the masses.
22 years ago I was lucky enough to be involved in turning Stephen Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time" into documentary series for the BBC. It was an enormous project taking two years to make. We filmed and interviewed ground breaking scientists and astrophysicists all over the world. We looked through telescopes at the night sky and visited the European Space Agency. It was a "one in a million" series to work on. It was also my first chance to write the scripts for two of the programmes - an incredibly daunting task as I am not an astrophysicist! - but it was really the start of my documentary directing career.
The whole series was narrated by Stephen himself and we went to Cambridge to film him presenting the series. It was incredible to meet him.
Stephen Hawking on the shoot
Stephen Hawking in Cambridge presenting the series
The European Space Agency
Inside the European Space Agency
Through the lens of the telescope - The Orion Belt, Orion Nebula and Horsehead Nebula