Sad, but it comes to us all in the end. What an extraordinary guy; I wouldn't pretend to follow the mathematics even when written down. But he was reputed to manipulate the equations in his head. Not just a different league, but a whole different ball game.
I never spoke to him, but I used to see him quite regularly driving his wheelchair around in Cambridge in the early 1980s. In those days DAMTP was in a hodge-podge of buildings off Silver Street near what was the University Press building. I used to walk past it four times a day on my way back and forth from the engineering department to college.
A couple of nights ago I watched the 1980s Horizon program, on iPlayer, about SH and based on a seminar with some of his students. Right at the beginning I was startled to recognise one the students. He worked at the same company (Topexpress) as me in the late 1980s. I knew he was into cosmology but I didn't realise at the time he'd worked with SH.
Andrew