I didn’t think about trying to compete with Clarkson, May and Hammond and being bigger and better. I was the 591st man to play Tests for England, which meant there were 590 men that came before me (including a May and a Hammond, both of them greats). I was always thankful for them paving the way, and that’s how I thought about Clarkson, May and Hammond. They had made Top Gear their own and were brilliant on it. So I understood why Clarkson made a few barbed comments about Top Gear after leaving. I’d have even understood if he’d come out and admitted he wanted it to go tits up. Clarkson said that when he was sacked from the show, it was like someone taking his baby away, and I can understand that. When I retired from cricket, I wasn’t ready to leave the stage either. And when someone else took my job, it was difficult. For Clarkson, it was Chris Evans, Matt LeBlanc and then me and Paddy. For me, it was Ben Stokes. Things move on so fast and you’re quickly forgotten. Good job, too, because if you’re not quickly forgotten, things can’t be going right in your absence. I don’t resent Ben Stokes, and I don’t want him to fail (although I might resent him and want him to fail if he retired from cricket and nicked my job on Top Gear). But there would be something wrong with me if I didn’t think, ‘I’d love to still be doing what he’s doing.’
When I performed Fat Friends, we were only allowed to pin good reviews on the noticeboard. But I pinned one up that absolutely hammered me, I was honestly fine about it, I just did it as a joke. I’d like to think I was as blasé about the prospect of bad reviews for Top Gear, but if you’ve got every newspaper in the country hammering you, rather than the odd critic from the Lancashire press, I’m sure it takes its toll. But I’d taken plenty of flak as a cricketer. And, when it comes to TV, the public ultimately decides what someone can and can’t do. When I say ‘the public’, I don’t mean people ranting and raving and being abusive on social media, I mean people voting with their remote controls. If they switch off, the show goes under and/or I get canned. If they don’t, the show carries on and I can carry on presenting it.
When it came to starting filming, I was almost as excited as I’d been during my cricket career. I hadn’t had that feeling for a long time. When that music came on and I was stood there in the middle with Paddy and Chris, I couldn’t help thinking how bizarrely my life had turned out. I enjoyed doing the bits and pieces in the studio, but that world always feels a bit unnatural to me. I’ve never been a slave to the autocue, and they let me interpret things in my own way (because if I’m reading, you really know that I’m reading), but I prefer being out and about than doing links or presenting. I find it far easier reacting to things that naturally happen, which I suppose you would describe as being a bit loose and playing a slightly exaggerated version of yourself.
Before Top Gear, the TV jobs I’d loved most were those that gave me the opportunity to travel and all the life experiences that come with that. Top Gear was the same, in that we became totally immersed in wherever we ended up. In somewhere like Ethiopia, you stay where you can. It might be a nice lodge, but it might be little more than a hut. That’s fine with me, because I don’t really want to be staying in the Four Seasons anyway. I was blown away by Ethiopia, not least because even all these years later, I still associated it with its famine in the 1980s. But it was green and lush and absolutely beautiful.
Peru was incredible, one of the best places I’d ever been, with the loveliest, most welcoming people. Apparently, the Incas built their roads hundreds of years ago and they were so far ahead of their time, I couldn’t help thinking that aliens were somehow involved. Like the pyramids in Egypt, I just don’t see how it was possible otherwise. Driving through Peru was just incredible – Chris in his Dart, me in my VW campervan, which I’ve always loved but had never had the chance to drive. Travelling with Paddy was brilliant, because he’s so enthusiastic about everything. By his own admission, he wasn’t very well travelled before he did Top Gear, so he was like someone who had opened his eyes for the very first time. And that kind of child-like curiosity is infectious.
I don’t think I could have done the job a few years earlier, because I didn’t listen too much when I was playing cricket. I rated myself as a driver, but I’m pretty sure every bloke does. And you’ve got to listen hard when someone is teaching you how to drive a car at 150 mph, otherwise things can go wrong. And even when you do listen, things can still go wrong. Which they did. The second crash happened in Mansfield, when I was racing Paddy and Chris around the city centre, misjudged a bend and ploughed my retro pickup truck straight into a market stall. Luckily, the market stall was empty. The first was when I rolled a hearse in Wales. I blame Chris for that one. I was trying to muscle this hearse around a corner, he was egging me on and I hit a bump. Having lost control of the wheel for a second I thought, ‘We’re going to be all right, it’s going to come back’, before the hearse started to go over and everything seemed to slow down. I’d rolled a car and it felt the same, so when we were upside down I thought, ‘Actually, we’ll be all right.’ It was only when I heard Chris shouting to Paddy in the back, and not getting a reply, that I started panicking. It’s one thing hurting yourself, but you don’t want to hurt anyone else. Luckily, Paddy wasn’t dead, he was just in a state of shock.
Then there was the time I crashed a three-wheeled cycle-car during a drag race at Elvington Airfield. I was lying on my front, hurtling along at 124 mph (which, to be fair to the vehicle’s owner, was 4 mph faster than he told me it could go) when I overshot the runaway and spun off. People told me there was a huge bang before I disappeared in a cloud of dust. Elvington was where Richard Hammond almost killed himself while filming for Top Gear a few years back, so Paddy, Chris and the crew were obviously quite concerned. But after being checked over by the medics, I was back on my feet and back at it. The media made it sound as if I’d almost died, but when the footage was broadcast, it looked more ridiculous than dangerous. And it took my kids two days to find out how I was: ‘Mum said you had a bit of an accident?’
Me and Paddy were half-decent drivers (and Paddy says he likes to tinker under the bonnet, although I haven’t seen any evidence of that yet), but when we saw what Chris could do behind a wheel, we realised we were nowhere near. I like how they look, I like driving them, I know a fast car from a slow car, and I can probably do what most men can do: fill them up with petrol, check the oil, change a tyre. But that’s about it. I’m not a mechanic or a racing driver, and I’m not trying to be anything I’m not. And I’ve never met anyone who knows as much about cars as Chris, which is why I ask him questions all the time. It’s like being a kid in a cricket team, soaking up knowledge from the senior player. When Chris speaks, we listen, even if we don’t know what he’s talking about, which is a lot of the time. It’s also why Chris does most of the ‘proper’ driving. He can do pieces to camera while driving at 200 mph in a Ferrari 488 – sideways. He’ll be talking as if he’s tootling down to the supermarket: ‘What do I need to get again? Bread and milk?’ I didn’t want any of my driving to be faked, so when you see me flying around a track, that’s actually me – they don’t do close-ups of my face and cut to long shots of someone else behind the wheel. If Chris is driving something, that probably means neither me nor Paddy could do it.
My driving is getting better, which means I’m getting to do more and more things. I love driving a car very fast around a track, but it’s the off-road driving I enjoy most. Me and Chris competed in the Formula Offroad in Iceland, which involves driving 1600 horsepower buggies up the sides of cliffs. We also competed in the Baja 1000 in Mexico, but I didn’t get the chance to drive because the car fell apart while Chris was doing the first leg. But I can’t see myself driving in any kind of professional capacity any time soon.
There are different levels of competition and I could probably get into some of them. But first, I don’t really have the time. And second, I couldn’t be doing with all the faffing about. If you could just turn up to the track, jump in the car and drive, that would be brilliant. But
you’ve got to test them and go through all the mechanics and the rest, which would just bore me. Plus, my competitive spirit has nearly disappeared. Whether it’s Top Gear or A League of Their Own, I do a lot of competitive stuff, but I’m not bothered about winning any more. I know where desperately wanting to win takes me, because that’s how I used to live my life. And it’s not a fun place. When you’re a sportsperson, winning takes on a whole different meaning. It’s literally your job to win. But needing to win all the time is exhausting. I no longer want to be like that, because if all your energy is focused on winning, you miss out on other stuff – like enjoying yourself, which is what I’m supposed to be doing now. In my new career, I’m not judged on winning or losing. Driving around a dirt track while someone is squirting cattle lubricant in your face isn’t exactly the Ashes. That’s not to say I don’t still have to work on it. There was one segment in the last series of Top Gear that involved us playing the equivalent of musical chairs with cars. I was driving and I completely wiped Chris out. I wasn’t particularly proud of myself. For that split second, the competitive juices started surging through my veins and I had to have that parking spot.
I’ve driven an Austin Allegro through Borneo and an old Porsche Boxster through Ethiopia, as well as a £250,000 car around a track, which is impossible not to love. I did sometimes think, ‘This is madness’, but the only time I say no to anything is if I think it’s a shit idea, not because it might be dangerous. So when they said they wanted me to do a bungee jump in Switzerland, off a 400-ft dam in a convertible Metro, I immediately said yes.
I’d done bungee jumps before, including off a dam for A League of Their Own. And while I realised that there were a few more moving parts involved doing a bungee jump in a car, I wasn’t too bothered. It just seemed like a fun way to spend an afternoon, and I was sure they’d filled in all the relevant health and safety forms. The stunt was dressed up as an experiment, to prove that a nineties’ Rover can accelerate faster than an Ariel Atom, which can go from 0–60 mph in just over two seconds. In truth, it was a bit of theatre designed to scare the shit out of me. Because everything had to look perfect for TV and they had to set up lots of different camera shots, I was sitting in that car for an hour and a half. After about five minutes, I started to feel quite comfortable. It was a case of, ‘Right, lads, I’m ready when you are, drop me whenever you want.’ But after about half an hour, lots of things started going through my mind. When you’re doing a normal bungee jump, you’ve got a rope around your feet, so you know you’re attached to something. But in a car, you can’t feel anything. You’re just suspended in mid-air. So I started thinking, ‘This car is just attached to a crane. What if the crane isn’t properly attached to something and topples over? And that crane driver didn’t look too confident. I hope these ropes are going to kick in . . . Why am I doing this?’ It was utterly terrifying. And when they finally dropped me, it was truly horrific.
Having done that bungee jump, I do wonder what they’re going to come up with next. What I do know is that they’ve already got their most depraved minds on it.
It doesn’t matter what it is – business, politics, acting, sport or TV – once you start thinking you’ve cracked it and are doing well, that’s when it will all come crashing down. But our first series of Top Gear was a great start. The relationships between the three presenters got tighter episode after episode and it gave us a great platform to build on. The humour wasn’t the same as in the Clarkson era, because it couldn’t be. The world has changed and things that used to be acceptable aren’t any more. We just don’t come close to the line that shouldn’t be crossed. It’s more about having a laugh and rooting for each other. Then, in the second series, we were able to push the boundaries a bit more and do even more audacious things. The ratings for the first two series were so good that they’re moving the third series from BBC2 to BBC1, for the first time in its modern history. People wanted their Top Gear back, and I’m so pleased we were able to give it to them. One thing’s for sure, Top Gear fans have been more positive than cricket fans were when I was playing.
Personally, I always just tried to be myself, which seems to have worked. I’ve also got more confident behind the wheel and haven’t stopped learning new things. I know that there are many more polished TV presenters than me, and while there’s still an element of me turning up each day and thinking I’m going to get found out, I feel more confident in my own skin than I used to. People sometimes ask me if I feel like I’ve got imposter syndrome. Have I heck! I did have imposter syndrome when I was playing cricket. I’d look around the dressing room, consider the great players who played for England before me and feel like I shouldn’t be spoken about in the same breath as them. That’s because playing sport is a quantifiable skill. But when it comes to TV, I look around and think, ‘Why should I not be doing this?’ Not because I’m very good, but simply because if they can do it, why can’t I? I’m all over it, don’t worry about that.
I’d never really watched anything I’d done, including playing cricket. The thought of sitting there watching myself on TV always just seemed a bit weird. But the kids are now at that age when they want to sit and watch stuff as a family, including anything I’m in, so I don’t have much of a choice. Sometimes it’s embarrassing because I’ll be dressed in drag or performing as a Chippendale on A League of Their Own. But mostly when I’m watching Top Gear, I cringe and think, ‘That’s not you, stop presenting!’ But I’m a lot more comfortable than I used to be. Viewers seem to like people who throw themselves into things, and that’s how I see it, as an opportunity to do stuff that most people would never get the chance to do.
My kids will sometimes say to me, ‘Dad, what did you do today?’
‘Oh, I just rolled a funeral hearse.’
‘Where are you going next week?’
‘Nepal.’
I think in some ways they think I’m a bit of an embarrassing dad, and in other ways they enjoy the fact I do a different job to most dads.
CHAPTER TWO
‘INFLUENCERS’ AND THE INTERNET
I use social media when I have to, mainly when I’m promoting things I’ve done. I’ll think about things I posted in the past and think, ‘Why am I doing this for?’ I suppose that’s the $64,000 question – what is the point of social media?
There was a time, not too long ago, when people didn’t feel the need to show or tell anyone anything. Maybe if you’d been on holiday and your mates were round, you’d show them a few photos. But even that was considered a bit naff. And pre-Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and everything else, if people didn’t like something they saw on TV or read in a newspaper, they’d maybe have a moan to whoever happened to be sitting next to them. They didn’t phone up their mates and shout their opinions down the phone. That would have been seen as weird. But now, people feel the need to share everything about their lives with complete strangers, whether it’s their view on the latest news or videos of their cat falling off a tumble dryer. If your cat fell off a tumble dryer pre-social media, you might have told your wife in passing and she might have smiled. Now, it might get thousands of likes from people you don’t know and will never meet.
Facebook and Instagram are filtered versions of people’s lives. Sometimes literally. People in the social media age want to project a perfect existence. Look at my perfect kids, look at my perfect house, look at my perfect garden, look at my perfect holiday. It’s effectively showing off, which used to be frowned upon in society. When I was growing up, parents used to tell their kids off for showing off. Now the parents are showing the kids off on Facebook. All the time. I’ve even read stories about kids rebelling against their parents because they’re being used as tools by so-called internet influencers. What the hell’s an influencer? How many followers do you need to be considered an influencer? Is there a guild of influencers? Is there an influencers’ union? And why do people take any notice? Whatever the answers, influencers exist, and apparently they’re influen
cing people. It’s bonkers.
The madder the online world becomes, and the more people get sucked into its vortex, the more I find myself trying to withdraw from it. I feel like someone on a big ship, jumping overboard before it hits an iceberg. Or someone staggering inside from a snowstorm and locking every door and window. I think lots of people are thinking the same. Don’t get me wrong, everywhere I go I see people glued to their phones. Walk around Manchester and you’re dodging people all the time, because they’ve got their heads down and are tapping away as they’re strolling. People just cannot bear to be away from their phones for more than a couple of minutes. But I’ve heard about people giving up their smartphones and going back to one of those old Nokias that can just make calls and send texts. They’ve got that Snake game, but that’s about it.
There have been periods when my alarm would go off in the morning and I’d snooze it and snooze it and snooze it, before thinking, ‘Right, that’s enough snoozing, time for some social media.’ Then I’d roll on my back, press a few buttons on my phone and suddenly I’d be scrolling through Twitter. I’d spend the next half an hour looking at what people I didn’t even know were doing or thinking. I’d feel under pressure to follow people I kind of knew, there would be people asking if I’d follow them, and I’d be thinking, ‘Well, no. Because I genuinely do not give a shit what you do or think about anything!’ Then I’d move onto Rightmove or Auto Trader, to see if any new houses had come on the market or anyone was selling any nice cars. And this would be before I’d even got out of bed. Why? It’s not like I needed a new house or a new car or a new anything else, or needed to know what was going on in anyone else’s life or what their views were on the Tories or Labour or someone losing weight or putting weight on or saying the wrong thing or saying the right thing in slightly the wrong way. I delete all my social media apps every now and again before getting a new gig and being told to go back on it. I had to go back on Twitter before Top Gear started, but I made sure I had to go through all the rigmarole of searching for Twitter on Google and signing in before posting anything.
Right, Said Fred Page 2