AWAITING entry to London’s historic Westminster Abbey for the interring of world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, former Whakatane man Matt McKevitt found himself in illustrious company.
The former Whakatane High School student, now living in London, was one of 1000 people chosen by public ballot to attend the service held in London last week where Professor Hawking’s ashes were laid to rest beneath a stone in the floor of Westminster Abbey’s nave.
It was an event that Matt describes as “surreal”, and not one he will forget for a long time.
Not only being present at the burial of “such an impressive man”, Matt says, but to be present in historic Westminster Abbey was, “like nothing I’ve ever experienced”.
“I suppose being a venue that has held royal weddings and coronations and burials of kings and queens for hundreds of years, they really know how to put on a show,” he says. “It felt like an event of real significance.”
Professor Hawking’s ashes were laid near those of New Zealand scientist Ernest Rutherford, who was buried in the Abbey in 1937, and near the two British men credited with revolutionising science, Isaac Newton who was buried in 1727, and Charles Darwin, 1882.
The service was attended by world luminaries of science and academia. It was “full of Nobel Prize winners, astronauts, and the like,” Matt says. Waiting for entry to the abbey and finding himself in line next to Chris Hadfield – the first Canadian to walk in space, an astronaut on two space shuttle missions and a commander on the International Space Station – was, he says, an example.
The service, which was broadcast around the world, also featured a six-minute recording of Stephen Hawking advocating for planetary preservation, arranged with music by Greek musician Vangelis, and transmitted into space by a European Space Agency dish.
The message’s target is 1A 0620 (aka V616 Monocerotis), the closest known black hole to earth, located 3500 light years away. It is estimated that around the year 5500, the recording will reach its destination.
Matt says he’d initially entered the ballot simply because he thought it would be “a cool thing” to be part of. “I’d read about it, and I thought, ‘why not?’”
“Some of my New Zealand friends would say I’ve got a bit of a lucky streak,” but considering the odds of ending up with a ticket, Matt says he saw it as unlikely. “I really didn’t think much more about it.”
When he later received an email advising that his name had been drawn, Matt says he was suspicious. “It looked like a scam to me. I forwarded it to my parents and they thought so too.” It wasn’t till some time afterwards, he says, when an actual invitation arrived by mail, that he knew his invitation was for real. A total of 27,583 people from 117 countries had entered the public ballot. 1000 tickets were allocated.
It was at this point that he began to feel excited, and became more aware of the significance of the “once in a lifetime opportunity”.
The event, he says, has left him in awe. “Not only to be part of the celebration of such an impressive person’s life, but also being a part of history. Isaac Newton was buried there in the Abbey with, probably, a similar ceremony and kings and queens have been buried there since the 1300s. Coming from New Zealand, that sort of history is staggering to me”.
“I’m so glad I was able to go. It did inspire you to try to better yourself, and to hopefully make some sort of positive impact and contribution to the world, as he did.”
Matt, who was Dux of Whakatane High School in 2005, graduated from Otago University with a bachelor of medicine. Working for a time in hospitals in New Zealand and finding that “being a doctor wasn’t making me happy”, he moved to London.
“I wanted to try something else before committing to a lifetime of being a doctor,” he says.
Matt is currently commercial director for London-based healthcare company, Senzer.
By Lorraine Wilson