by Gwen Russell
But why should he care? Nothing succeeds like success, and Jeremy’s life was, pardon the pun, moving up yet another gear. Shortly after the move, Francie gave birth to the couple’s second child, a son, called Finlo. The name, like Finlo’s mother, came from the Isle of Man. Francie was then plunged back into the thick of it as she continued to combine the role of wife, mother and Jeremy’s manager. When Finlo was only a few months old, Clarkson caused national rage by describing Birmingham as ‘a rugby team’s bath after they have let the water out’, or to put it another way, a circle of scum with nothing at the centre.
This was, of course, vintage Clarkson, but the minor problem this time was that it was said a couple of weeks before the 1996 Motor Show, which was to be held in Birmingham. It didn’t seem to worry Jeremy, who came out fighting in favour of the motor industry. ‘I love the glitz and glamour of it,’ he said. ‘You must remember that, after arms and legitimate drugs, the motor industry is the third biggest in the world and when it fluffs up its feathers and puts on a show, it can look pretty good.’
But for all his protestations that his constituency were car buyers rather than car sellers, Clarkson was now considered such an expert on all things motoring that he tended to get dragged into all the major issues of the day. Take the changing face of car manufacturers: once the realm of sexist dinosaurs, their image was evolving into something more acceptable for both sexes – and not before time. Asked if the days when voluptuous women would be seen lying languorously across a car were long gone, Jeremy was adamant that the recent depression in the industry had not just been because of that.
‘The trade’s been very depressed for the past few years because of all this nonsense about pollution and the need for electric cars,’ he said. ‘And the motor industry, instead of flexing its enormous muscles and fighting back, has kowtowed and made these tedious little cars. But they’ve pretty well gone away and it’s all back to power and fun and games, and pouting girls.’
On the subject of women, strangely enough, although he has so often compared driving a really good car to having sex, Clarkson is not quite the male chauvinist some perceive him to be. For a start, he has gone on record admitting to nappy changing, which is slightly at odds with the macho image but, more to the point, he has always point blank denied making derogatory remarks about women’s driving skills. Indeed, he has quite frequently gone on the record as saying that it’s his wife Francie who is the boy racer in the family, not him.
‘I’ve never been sexist, never made remarks about women drivers,’ he once said. ‘I don’t think there is a difference.’ It is one area where it would have been so easy to whip up a furore, but Jeremy avoids it. It’s only his public image that makes the public think he’d be prejudiced against female motorists – which, at the very least, implies he’s a rather more complex character than is sometimes made out.
Another reason for his growing popularity was that, as he continued to explain, he knew no more about the internal workings of cars than the ordinary man on the street. He certainly had a feel for the different models, how they drove, how they reacted and how they actually felt, but as to what actually powered them, he was mystified. He had always been extremely open about this, but now, given that he was probably the most recognisable ‘car person’ in the country, some people began to wonder if his ignorance was an affectation. Jeremy was keen to reassure them that it wasn’t.
‘Yeah, people are always keen to talk about that stuff, especially the Germans,’ he said. ‘They love the details. They love to get you down and say, “Look at our new track rod end. Have you ever seen anything like it?” And I say, “I’m sorry, I don’t think it’s very important.” I don’t think the vast majority of people who buy cars care a gnat’s what is under the bonnet. Just so long as when they pull out to overtake a tractor, they’ll go faster than the tractor.’
So he really didn’t understand how engines work? ‘I really don’t,’ Clarkson replied. ‘I’ve tried over the years to understand the basics of internal combustion – how the spark plug has a spark and ignites the fuel mixture, and there’s this piston that somehow turns this rod, which turns the gear lever, which makes the car move …’ The point was clear. Caustic and witty he might be, but Clarkson was also Everyman.
And his success on television was greater than ever. The public just could not get enough of him, a fact that did not go unnoticed by his bosses at the BBC. Next on the box was to be a series entitled Jeremy Clarkson Unlimited, in which the great man got to travel on or in just about everything that moved, not just cars. It was met with the usual Clarkson enthusiasm. ‘The basic premise is, if it rolls, floats, flies, shoots a big bullet, runs on high explosive or gasoline, then we feature it,’ he explained. But even Jeremy was not superman: he was not actually going to be able to power everything himself. ‘I can’t fly – though I did go on a powerboat once,’ he said. ‘The most extraordinary experience. I find it hard to talk about it. I mean it can go from 0–100mph in three seconds. You can’t see how half an inch of plywood hull in the water can provoke enough grip to make your face get all twisted up.’
As for the programme itself, though, he was beyond excited. ‘It’s kind of “Beyond the Dodge Viper” – that was as exciting as cars get, but not as exciting as motorised transport gets,’ he said. ‘We’ll be doing helicopters, gun-ships, powerboats … it should be called “Big Boys’ Toys”.’ It is hard to imagine a more fitting title for all Clarkson’s many and varied outings on the television screen.
CHAPTER 5
KING OF THE ROAD
A long with all the jollity, Jeremy continued to accumulate the various prejudices and hates that remain with him to this day. BMWs – and their drivers – were, and are, a target, and are best summed up in this mid-1990s’ tirade ‘All BMWs are driven by people who are psychologically unfit to drive anything more powerful than an electric razor. Try it one day, if there is a busy road near to where you live: come to the side turning and see if you can get a BMW to let you out. You’ll be let out by a builder’s truck; you’ll be let out by a bus before you’re let out by someone driving a BMW. They’re stuck in 1986, urgently dashing to their next meeting. The new 5-series is almost faultless, until you get to the psychopath behind the wheel.’ It should be mentioned, in passing, that Francie drove a BMW. It was hard to know which Clarkson was teasing which.
The market for all things Clarkson was booming and so, in 1996, he released an Unleashed video, which more than lived up to the name. Jeremy was filmed driving a Volvo into a tree and using a medieval catapult to fling a Nissan Sunny into the ground. The viewers adored it. His detractors, of course, did not.
Another curiosity about Jeremy is that, when you take on the sheer size and numbers of people, car drivers, cars and nationalities he’s insulted and then consider the size of his fan base, there must be some crossover. Jeremy has simply been too rude about too many people for there not to have been some category that almost anyone and everyone would fall into, and yet it did nothing at all to hold him back. Quite the opposite in fact: the ruder he got, the more his audience (especially the male part of it) loved him. And they also loved his laddish side, which was absolutely at its height in the mid-1990s.
It was an image Jeremy enjoyed playing up to. Cars, in the Clarkson world view – or at least the ones he promoted on television – were not so much a mode of transport, more a way of getting female attention. ‘When you go out, you want to appeal to the opposite sex, and the car is the final touch,’ he said on one occasion. ‘You see these amazingly stunning people – chiselled jaw, pouting lips and so on – and crap cars. And you think: “You idiot, you’re lost, because the car is the only thing we can judge you by. You’ve gone to all that trouble with the scarf and stubble ensemble, and you’re driving a Datsun.” You pick up birds in a Ferrari – you just do.’
Speaking of Ferraris … Jeremy had by now acquired one for himself – a red one, naturally – that was his pride and joy. For al
l the showmanship, the playing to the crowd, the deliberate provocations, there was something almost childlike in Clarkson’s appreciation of his new car. A Ferrari is one of the ultimate boy’s toys, but it is only the very successful boys that get to own one, and it was the final badge of honour he had been working for. Jeremy had arrived. He had the greatest status symbol on the road: a car sought by millions and owned by the very few. It was the culmination of a dream and Clarkson adored it. He was also rather irritated by the reaction his beautiful new motor so often provoked and it brought on a rare display of grumpiness.
‘For most people, it’s flash, flash, flash, thumbs up, great car,’ he growled. ‘But here, it is a peculiarly British thing, some of them think, “Dickhead, wanker, I’ll have ’im out of there.” Thanks very much, I’ve only worked seven days a week for ten years with nothing but owning a Ferrari as my goal, and now you’re calling me a dickhead. Well, thanks a lot, mate. That sounds awfully Thatcherite, but nothing pisses me off more than envy culture. In America, they see a limo go by and they think, “One day I’ll be in one of those.” In England they think, “I’ll have ’im out of there.”’
It was a rare note of aggravation: Jeremy was more than capable of simply laughing off criticism and jealousy from others without a qualm. But when it came to his Ferrari, his pride and joy, it was another matter. It revealed a different side to Clarkson: underneath all the banter and the bonhomie lay someone who could be hurt by criticism, someone who did mind what other people thought about him. And, very tellingly, this aspect to his personality could only be brought out by a very beautiful, and very expensive, car.
And he certainly did love his Ferrari. He was like a child with a toy when he gloated over it. ‘It is my favouritest car in the whole wide world,’ he crooned. ‘Driving it is astonishing. It’s like an extension of your hands and feet, really – the tiniest input and it whizzes round like a little rabbit. It’s a wonderful car.’
No superlative was good enough for his new motor. ‘I went to Italy to drive this new type of Ferrari about three years ago and it was a revelation,’ he said on another occasion. ‘It was like discovering God. From then on, I just had to have one. I’m afraid I had to put my wife on the streets of King’s Cross, get the children up chimneys, sell everything. I just had to have one. It was getting to the point where I used to see cars just as tanks of petrol surrounded by metal. The Ferrari 355 came along and rekindled my interest. It’s just so damn good – it’s red, of course.’
But his moment of aggravation was not the end of it. Jeremy even let on that he sometimes worried that being a car aficionado could be, well, a bit anoraky, but that he was greatly relieved to see that it wasn’t when he looked at the other people who appreciated their vehicles. ‘Steve Coogan, Robbie Coltrane, Alexei Sayle – as soon as they’ve got a bit of money, they sneak off and buy a car,’ he said. ‘Makes you feel better, makes you feel like you’re not a complete animal when you find that quite trendy people are into cars as well.’ So was Clarkson experiencing self-doubt? It’s not a moment that has been repeated that often since.
One constant in Jeremy’s life, of course, was Francie. Completely different in her views to those of her husband, she continued to keep him grounded, something he is only too keen to acknowledge. And the fact that she is so level-headed provides a contrast to the public side of his life, which became increasingly frenetic as his fame grew. ‘Put it this way, she comes in every night with a copy of the Big Issue,’ he said. ‘She used to counsel people who’d just been made redundant. I would give her tips for the day, such as telling them to pull themselves together and stop whinging. You could say she’s mellowed me.’
That slightly softer Jeremy also came through when talking about another of his cars – this one, a Volvo. Was Jeremy himself a superlative driver? At this he came across as downright modest. ‘I’m a perfectly ordinary driver with a clean licence who doesn’t speed except when on a racetrack when there’s a camera pointed at me,’ he said. ‘For the rest of the time, I just potter. I have an automatic, bright red Volvo with a baby seat that looks staid but can do 160mph. [But] when a car goes into a spin, I tend to undo the safety belt and climb in the back.’ It was this streak of self-deprecation that stopped him from coming across as just too arrogant, and it is something Clarkson has perfected over the years. Say something shocking about whatever subject you like, and then say something that shows you really don’t take yourself too seriously. It is a formula Jeremy has got down to a fine art.
As his popularity grew and grew, offers were flooding in and, increasingly, they had little or nothing to do with cars. Clarkson was by now a fully fledged TV personality: he was no longer famous for just being a motoring expert, but for his abrasive personality and forthright views. And those qualities made him suitable for a wide range of programmes, not just Top Gear and the numerous one-off series he now presented that were also to do with cars.
But not all offers were suitable. When you reach the level of celebrity he has attained, producers are desperate to haul you into anything, as your name alone becomes a draw. Sometimes, however, it is hard to escape the impression that these producers have not really thought the offers through. Jeremy was particularly taken aback when asked to front one show – Gladiators, which at the time was one of the most successful shows on TV. ‘I’m too fat,’ said a slightly incredulous Clarkson. ‘They’d call me the Lardiator. I thought it was a joke when I got the offer; it took me three days to come around.
‘Can you imagine me on Gladiators? I’d be absolutely hopeless. The Gladiators are super fit – I’m as fat as a hippopotamus. I’d be exhausted just walking from one end of the arena to another. I’m the least fit person in the world. I’ve never worked out and have no wish to start. I was very flattered to have been asked. I would have enjoyed working with Ulrika. It would have been a laugh – well, for me, anyway.’
By October 1997, interest in Jeremy was now at such a fever pitch that his wife was getting dragged into the limelight, too. And not only that: she was venturing into Jeremy’s territory. As his manager, Francie was bound to have had some knowledge about cars, if only through osmosis, but in actual fact she was as keen on cars as her husband. He often joked that it was she who liked going to motor shows and she who was the fast driver in the house, which was fortunate, given the extent to which the Clarkson household revolved around cars.
Francie is also an extremely spirited woman, as witnessed by the fact that now she was taking to the road herself, by participating in the Liège-Agadir-Liège International Touring Trial, organised by the Guild of Motor Endurance. It was her first rally and her partner was to be Emma Stanford. The two were driving a Technic Speedster, a car that very much resembled a Porsche, despite the fact that Francie, like her husband, cheerfully proclaimed she knew nothing about the internal workings of cars. This was, in fact, to be the first of many rallies in which she took part. It was, perhaps, a way of maintaining her independence: once a year she got away from the family and took to the road on her own.
As Clarkson’s fame grew, so too did his wealth. Despite his professed loathing of the countryside, the Cotswold house was clearly a good base for the family, as it provided room both for the growing brood of children and the growing collection of cars. There was also plenty of room for Jeremy and Francie to enjoy themselves: a stable complex provided both garage space and a games room, complete not only with a dartboard and ping-pong table, but with two Sega rally machines – that is, virtual cars on virtual backgrounds, which you sit in a machine and play. They, too, were boys’ toys par excellence and gave the whole family hours of pleasure in the evenings.
‘Francie bought them for my birthday,’ Clarkson explained, as he demonstrated how the machines work. ‘Basically, you can just race each other round and round. We just get very, very drunk at night and then race cars. Look! There’s a choice of a Lancia or a Toyota. You can go absolutely flat out, very, very drunk all night long. It is good fun, get
ting it out of your system. I’ve got a rear view mirror and I can see the other one coming up behind me. I’ll have a crash! Look! I’m going at 260 kilometres an hour!’ This particular toy seemed to be almost as much fun as the Ferrari.
At around this time, there was a rather surprising and touching rapprochement between Jeremy and his old school. Repton, it seems, had been concerned that Jeremy hated the old place, and various masters had been assuring people that Clarkson had not actually been expelled, presumably as a way of making him feel better about the past. As a tactic, that particular one didn’t work. According to the man himself, oh yes he had been thrown out. Indeed, it was a matter of pride.
‘I saw an article in which my old school was quoted as saying I hadn’t been expelled,’ he said. ‘Well I was – for a whole chapter of lawbreaking. I just didn’t do anything they wanted me to do. I have a letter confirming that I was thrown out and that I would never be welcome on the school premises again as long as I lived.’ But despite both the expulsion and the school’s subsequent denial of it, he was more than willing to build bridges again. ‘I’d love to go back,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want to offer. That sounds awfully pretentious. They obviously think that because I keep telling people I got expelled I’ve got something against Repton. But I haven’t – they were the five happiest years of my life; I loved them.’
His past was to come up again in a different form, this time a very unexpected one. Jeremy and his Top Gear colleague Steve Berry had been trading the odd on-screen insult, but now, for reasons that were not entirely clear, the friction boiled over into real life. Steve launched an astonishing attack on Clarkson and was particularly withering about his reputation as a rebel at school.