Jane Wilde Hawking Travelling to Infinity Interview BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour

1963年、イギリスの名門ケンブリッジ大学大学院で、理論物理学を研究する天才学生。彼は、パーティーで出逢った女性と恋に落ちる。ところが、その頃から彼の体調に異変が起き始める。やがてALSと診断され、余命2年と宣告される。しかし女性は周囲の反対を押し切り、彼と結婚する道を選ぶ。

ホーキング博士の「人間の努力に終わりはないはず。私たちは一人一人違う。人生がどんなに悪く見えても、いつも何かできることがある。命あるところには、希望がある。」という台詞に、彼の様々な想いが詰まっていて印象深い。

Hawking's "There should be no end to human endeavour. Of course, each of us is different. But, no matter how bad life may seem, there is always something we can do. Where there is life, there is hope." This is a memorable line, filled with his many thoughts and feelings.

Jane Wilde Hawking Travelling to Infinity Interview BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour

A)

Interviewer: In 1963, two young undergraduates bumped into each other at a Cambridge party.

Stephen: Hello.

Jane: Hello

Stephen: Science.

Jane: Arts

Stephen: English

Jane: French and Spanish

Jane: And what about you?

Jane: Wh-what do you...?

Stephen: Oh, Cosmologist. I'm a Cosmologist.

Jane: What's that?

Stephen: It's a kind of religion for intelligent atheists.

Jane: Intelligent atheists?

Stephen: You are not religious, are you?

Jane: C of E. Church of England.

Stephen: Yes, I suppose someone has to be.

Jane: What do cosmologists worship, then?

Stephen: What do we worship?

Jane: Mhm.

Stephen: One single unifying equation that explains everything in the universe.

Jane: Really?

Stephen: Yes.

Jane: What's the equation?

Stephen: That is the question. And that is an excellent question.[Laugh] I am not quite sure yet, but I intend to find out.

B)

Interviewer: Well, that was Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones imagining the first meeting of Stephen Hawking and Jane Wilde in the new film, The Theory of Everything.

It tells a story of how Jane went on to marry the brilliant young astrophysicist knowing that he had motor neuron disease and had been given only three years to live. Professor Stephen Hawking and his wife, Jane, confounded all possible expectations as the years turned into decades. And they had three children together before separating in 1990. Both went on to remarry.

Stephen to his nurse Elaine Mason from who he has since divorced, and Jane to a long-standing family friend Jonathan Hellyer Jones.

Well, the film is a fascinating glimpse into their lives before and after the diagnosis, and it's based on Jane's Autobiography Travelling to Infinity. Jane Wilde Hawking told me what seeing her life on screen was like.

C)

Jane: Felicity's performance was phenomenal. She came to dinner several times while filming in Cambridge, and I got to know her quite well, but she studied me obviously while we talked and talked a lot. And when I saw her on the screen, I was amazed because she captured my mannerisms, movements, and speech patterns.

D)

Interviewer: when I see a snapshot of Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones in the wedding when you got married and an actual black and white photo of you and Stephen, you almost do a double take, right?

Jane: Yes. Stephen says he's seen photos of himself as a young man and Eddie side by side and has difficulty knowing which is which.

Interviewer: And the decision to get married, in 1965 when you were both very young, seems to have been an extraordinary thing to do in your life because at that point, he'd had his diagnosis of motor neuron disease, and you knew that a battle lay ahead. But you thought it would be quite a short battle, didn't you?

E)

Jane: When Stephen's father told me that Stephen had two or three years to live at most, I felt I could devote myself to him for those two or three years.

I loved him, I wanted to marry him, and I wanted to do my best for him to give him every opportunity. But, also, though, I have to tell people that we were living under the Nuclear Cloud, and it only took what would take only one spark to ignite a conflagration, i.e. a Nuclear war which was going to be the end of civilisation, the lot of all of us.

F)

Interviewer: You also gave up a lot when you got married, which again wasn't unusual for women of your generation, you know, you were educated, you studied languages, you hoped for a career in the diplomatic service. You then dedicated your life to your husband and family. But do you feel you gave up more than other women or friends?

Jane: Well, from one perspective, I think ours was the last generation for whom a home and a family were the great goals in life. On the other hand, my father insisted that I finish my degree in London. So, I completed my first degree, looked around for what I could do and realised quickly that being a wife and a mother in Cambridge was a passport to nowhere. There was no respect for wives and mothers in the academic.

G)

Interviewer: Did you resent that?

Jane: I thought I needed to do something about it. So I started working on a PhD in medieval Spanish poetry, which was lovely but challenging to manage. First of all, Stephen and a PhD.

- That wasn't so difficult because we were both working together, but when the children came along when I was looking after or playing with the children, I felt I should be doing my PhD and when I was doing my PhD. So I thought I should be looking after or playing with the children.

So there was a constant tension there, and because of all the other things I had to do looking after Stephen, of course, looking after the household. So it took me a very, very long time to finish it. I spent it just before Tim, my youngest son, was born.

H)

Interviewer: you talk of the years of child care and the "Stephen Care". Now as a carer, you sacrifice your needs much of the time, and it is endless caring. Did that take its toll? You described how you became a drudge in the book.

Jane: Eventually. At first, we were trying to be an average family living an everyday life. I was very young. I had bags of energy, and I managed; I coped. Stephen did have help from his friends and colleagues.

I mustn't forget them because when he went to the Department of applied maths during the day, they looked after him there, brought him home for lunch, and brought him home in the evening.

I)

After fame and fortune took hold, I began to find things very difficult. I was not as strong as I used to be. I was exhausted; eventually, I was just worn out.

Interviewer: Because there were a lot of occasions where someone had to be with Stephen 24 hours. You'd sit up all night and do shifts, wouldn't you, because you were worried about him?

Jane: My darling mum came over from St Albans, and she would sit up with Stephen all night when I was exhausted, and then one of his exceptional students, Bernard Carr, also came and helped out in the same way.

Stephen hated being in the hospital. He didn't want to go into the hospital, and he tried to get out as quickly as possible when he had to go there. And we didn't have a nursing team at home in those days, which meant that the family had to look after him at night with his dreadful, dreadful choking fits, which was so scary.

Interviewer: So you were living on a knife edge, weren't you, between life and death?

J)

Jane: I described it as living on a precipice, the edge of a precipice. But, even so, I said in the book that if you live on a ridge long enough, you begin to put down roots, and then a little tree grows up on the cliff's edge.

Interviewer: Stephen is non-confrontational because you never discussed his illness. It was like a "no-go" area.

Jane: He would not talk about it. And I think that probably was my mistake because if we were very young, I'd insisted on talking about it; it might have been more effortless later.

Interviewer: But going back to your platonic relationship with this lovely widower Jonathan who comes into your life having cared for his terminally ill wife.

H)

And she slots in nicely, and she is pretty happy to do all the caring duties for Stephen as well and in truth.

Jane: She takes over and helps with duties I was too exhausted to do myself.

Interviewer: How did you love a man you refused to have an affair with? In the film, it comes across a profound sense of duty between both of you.

Jane: I felt I was committed to Stephen, and Jonathan was saved, as he says in the film, not just to me but to the family. She was very lonely, having been widowed recently, and was not ready to have an affair. He was looking for some fulfilment in his life.

I)

Interviewer: Now, your relationship with Stephen ended unhappily when he had a relationship with one of his nurses, Elaine Mason, who he eventually married and has since divorced. What was that period in your life like, Jane? Did you feel utter betrayal?

Jane: No, because I realised that Jonathan was in my life, and I felt that Stephen had every right to have somebody in his life. But, I wanted us to continue as a family, and I felt that Stephen needed me in his life because I knew all the routines.

J)

I cared for him. I was committed to him. I felt he needed my protection, but he and his nurse did not want that. So that was the end of the marriage.

Interviewer: Has your relationship resolved since then?

Jane: Between Stephen and me?

Interviewer: Yes.

Jane: Oh well, we have three children and three grandchildren, and I think it's essential for the family to have a sense of unity and do things together. To go on holiday together and have meals on festive occasions together. And to enjoy things like The Theory of Everything together.

Interviewer: What was it like as the years kept passing by, and not to put too fine of a point on it, Stephen was still alive?

Jane: Life goes on. One year succeeds another, and you concentrate on all the beautiful things: your children, their success, the grandchildren and their success.

K)

And, in a sense, Stephen and I had won the battle against motor neuron disease, which was a great success too.

Interviewer: Would he ever have achieved what he did without you?

Jane: Now that I cannot answer. Other people have suggested that that might be the case, but who knows what could have happened.

Interviewer: At one point in the film Stephen says to you, "You don't know what's coming." If you had known, would you have made the same decision to get married?

L)

Jane: … [pauses] I think if I had known, I would also have known that I would want to do things differently. I want to be able to talk about the illness with him. Second, I want to be able to make better provisions.

I would want to be much more careful about vetting people who came into the house as nurses and carers. So I would have liked to have been in a strong position and wanted more help.

Interviewer: I was talking to Jane Hawking, and that film The Theory of Everything opened yesterday, and it is very, very good indeed.

Jane Wilde Hawking Travelling to Infinity Interview BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzrnYuZc3sw

The Theory of Everything - Official Trailer (Universal Pictures) HD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Salz7uGp72c

Stephen Hawking speaks at MIT - Education and Technology Sept. 1994

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-2GV0T5Zpc&t=416s

Spoilers for the movie "The Doctor and Her Theory." 

https://mihocinema.com/theory-everything-9782

Film review: The Theory of Everything 

https://www.thenationalnews.com/arts/film-review-the-theory-of-everything-1.120336