Locals share their memories at Stephen Hawking’s funeral

Huge turnout at service, as those who knew him reminisce about the great physicist

Rain had been promised but, as with many of the gloomiest predictions made for the young Stephen Hawking, the threatened deluge did not come.

Indeed, despite the solemnity of the occasion, the Cambridge funeral of a man who throughout his life seemed to command as much admiration from the lay public as from his academic peers was something of a celebration.