by Gwen Russell
‘When you’re filming things like cars, if you run out of things to say, you just whizz round with some music going and shut up,’ he said. ‘So suddenly, the idea of sitting there, just me, without my new Lamborghini or any of my other props – it’s scary. People who watch Top Gear aren’t tuning in to see me; they’re tuning in to see the cars. If I did a programme on newt farming, no one would watch.’
Indeed, so adamant was Clarkson about his qualms that right up until the very last minute he maintained he was going to turn the new programme down. ‘I drove down to London to the final push meeting they’d arranged to see if I’d change my mind, and all the way down I was saying to myself, “No, no, no, no! I am not doing a chat show. There are a million people who can do that. There’s Jonathan Ross, Chris Evans and Michael Parkinson – they do those. I go in Jags and things; that’s my job. No, no, no!” I walked through the restaurant door, lasted five seconds and said, “I’d be delighted.” Then I drove home, literally sweating because I’m hopeless; scared stiff.’
Clarkson, afraid? This side of Jeremy, never revealed before, continued to make itself felt. Indeed, he appeared to be positively revelling in doing what he dreaded. ‘I won’t do after-dinner speaking because I’m terrified of that sort of thing,’ he said. ‘The idea of driving to Carlisle to entertain a load of drunken double-glazing salesmen on a Tuesday night, who may or may not throw things at me, fills me with fear and dread. It’s easier to send the children up chimneys if you need a few quid.’
So why, he was asked, was he doing it? ‘Men are just ego covered in skin and they were massaging it and saying, “Oh, you’d be so good,”’ Jeremy said. ‘And I’m sitting there thinking, “Oh well, I must do it then.” I’ve been quietly pooing myself ever since I said I would, and I still am.’ That might just have been overstating the case. Nerve-wracking it might be, but it was a phenomenal opportunity, all the same. Clarkson was going to be even more mainstream than ever before.
The new show presented another problem, too: this time a sartorial one. Jeremy’s workaday uniform of jeans and a jacket just wasn’t going to cut it here. At long last, he was going to be manoeuvred into a suit. Quite a few magazines had fun with this one, running spreads of him hamming it up in Savile Row’s finest: a pro like him could hardly resist all the publicity that that one would bring.
But the image change could scarcely have been more startling – not just in the one-off shoots, but on screen when he hosted the show – and he wasn’t much looking forward to the change, either. Smart clothes and Clarkson were not natural bedfellows, but a chat show host had to show he could cut the mustard and live up to the elegant image created by the likes of Michael Parkinson and myriad others, too.
‘I don’t know where you buy suits from,’ he protested, before explaining that he had not necessarily been voted Britain’s worst dressed man. ‘Well, it might have been the second worst dressed man, which is even more embarrassing,’ he added. ‘All I’m concerned about is that, for the first time ever on TV, I’m going to be warm, instead of shivering on a hillside somewhere in Wales. I don’t know what I’m going to do in a studio, but at least I won’t be freezing.’
In the event, all was well-ish, and although the chat show never really took off, his popularity ensured it lasted for a few series. As for all this self-doubt: there’s no question that Jeremy was nervous, but he did draw the critics’ poison, as it were, before the show even began. If they thought he was awful when it aired – and some clearly did – well, Jeremy had already said he was going to be, and stated over and again that he expected the worst. In addition, the whole experiment made it quite clear just how highly Clarkson was regarded by the BBC.
CHAPTER 7
A SUDDEN CHANGE OF GEAR
As the Clarksons shifted up a gear in the fast-paced life they were now living, the fact that Francie was Jeremy’s manager was working increasingly well. She was a shrewd operator, quite aware of how famous her husband had become, quite aware of the full potential his profile now provided and determined that not only would he be paid properly but that he would also have the pick of projects that came his way. She made sure he was always prepared for everything, that his professional life ran as smoothly as his home life and that any potential problems were sorted out before they even appeared. She was, in fact, perfect for the role and has been a huge factor in her husband’s massive success.
Jeremy himself is well aware of this and has paid fulsome tribute to her, and to the fact that she contributed as much to his career as he did. ‘Francie is the human pinball operator and I’m the ball,’ he said. ‘She just fires me off: she tells me what I have to do each day, the timings, what I have to wear, whether I need to shave, and she gives me a folder with a briefing of who I’m meeting and all the details. Without that I’d be completely lost.
‘She’s very tough in negotiations and I’m not. I’m just a pushover and say yes to everything. She hit the roof when she discovered I wasn’t charging travelling expenses when I was driving all over the country. Now she checks the mileage on the car before I go and when I get back. I’m seen as the nice guy and she wears the hobnailed boots.’ It is not an image his army of fans would entirely concur with.
Jeremy painted a good picture of her as the tough one, but Francie herself acknowledged that working as her husband’s manager also helped keep the family together. It was practical: it gave her the feeling that she was working at her own career but, at the same time, meant she had time to be with the children – and, of course, her husband. The fact that they worked together meant that they didn’t have to spend too much time apart.
But that had not initially been the plan. Just as Jeremy would often say the way his life turned out was really a matter of chance, so much the same applied to Francie. ‘When I stopped work to have Emily, I had every intention of returning,’ she said. ‘I’d never had an idle day in my life, so while I was home, I helped sort out Jeremy’s books and taking the phone calls. I knew that we’d have to find a good nanny when I went back to my job, because I’d be gone for twelve hours a day. The more I thought about it, the more I began to realise that we weren’t going to be a family if I went back [to work]. I realised it wouldn’t be fair on any of us and I’d be sacrificing a lot just for my job.’
It helped that she has the ideal personality for the role of a manager. Francie frequently paints a picture of herself as being a bit scatty but, in reality, she is straightforward, organised, efficient and determined. As she herself said, laziness is not part of her make-up, and so she didn’t find it a problem to run both her husband’s professional life and her home. She provided a good counterbalance to Clarkson’s sometimes overenthusiastic nature: he might get carried away with his latest feud or his latest obsession, but Francie managed to keep her feet on the ground. And it speaks volumes for her that she stood out against such a strong personality as Jeremy. She might not be recognised in the street the way he is, but among the people who know them, she retained a personality that was just as strong as that of her famous other half.
And, of course, it helped that the two work so well together. ‘I’ve found that being in business together works really well,’ Francie said. ‘If we hadn’t, then we wouldn’t have been so close, we simply wouldn’t have had enough time together. When I read about Anthea Turner saying how much she was away and how it had damaged her marriage, it underlined that. I don’t feel as if I’ve thrown anything away. I don’t see myself as having made a sacrifice; this is another stage in my life. I like supporting Jeremy and being with the children. I’m probably perceived as living in his shadow, but he doesn’t make me feel that way, he’s very respectful of what I do. Someone said I’m Mrs Fifteen Percent, but they’re wrong: I’m Mrs Fifty Percent; we share everything.’
It was not just work that the couple shared: it was their children, too. Family is actually very important to Jeremy, probably far more than most people realise, and so having Emily and Finlo was just as big a
part of his life as his career. Asked if work occasionally dominated his relationship with Francie, Clarkson replied, ‘We don’t get a chance for that to happen because the children dominate work – we can’t talk about it all the time. But it’s very important that we have a marriage as well as a partnership. Working together, I know I can trust her implicitly, but I also love it when the kids come zooming into the office and interrupt me.’
He adores being a father. He would roughhouse with the children, and there were, after all, plenty of acres in which to play. And the children adore him, too: there was plenty of horsing around, playing and general silliness. Certainly, it was Francie who was the disciplinarian in the family: when the children were with their father, they wanted to have a laugh. And Clarkson was only too happy to provide it. This was the aspect of his life that no one ever saw, where he was not causing chaos, having to voice strongly held views or defend himself against whatever he had just said.
This kept him grounded and happy. It was, after all, the main point of his existence: a happy home life in which he could relax away from the public eye and be himself. It also showed the wisdom of moving out of London: because in the space of the Clarkson estate, the family could enjoy themselves without the fear of being watched. He taught all his children to drive almost as soon as they could walk – this is perfectly legal as long as it is on private ground – and indulged them with toys and countryside treats.
It was good for the children, too, to grow up out of town, in that it helped counteract their father’s fame. Of course, Jeremy is as well known in the Cotswolds as he is everywhere else, but had the family been based in London, Emily and Finlo would have been much more aware of the status their father possessed. As it was, they were protected from some of the wilder excesses of fame – and, indeed, from some of its more negative aspects. Their father wasn’t only famous, he was one of the most controversial men in the country and at least they have rarely witnessed the downside to that.
Above all, the estate provided a refuge for Clarkson. As his mother pointed out, it is exhausting to be Britain’s most opinionated man 100 per cent of the time. Messing around with his wife and children, he didn’t need to keep up the act. It isn’t exactly an act, as such, for with Clarkson what you see is what you get, but even he needs time off and this is how he went about it. He and his family led a private existence, in contrast with the intensely public life he pursued the rest of the time. Living a peaceful, rural lifestyle, whatever he might say about heading back to London as often as possible, clearly kept Clarkson sane.
Having the support of his family behind him was also a big help to Jeremy when he went out to work in the wider world. And the new chat show was taking up a lot of his time: he had to stay in London during the week as work on the programme progressed, on top of which Francie had just discovered she was expecting again. Not for the first time, Clarkson came across as a naughty schoolboy trying to justify his actions.
‘You just would not believe my behaviour,’ he said, now resident part of the time in the flat the family had kept on in London. ‘My wife’s pregnant and looking after two small children and is living out there in the swamps. So I was very careful, my first week down here, to make sure that when I talked to her I said I’d worked late, cracked a takeaway and was in bed early … It was a great story and it was working brilliantly – until she got my credit card bills. Every night there was another restaurant. I’ve just been running around, injecting myself with a bit of London joie de vivre, which is great. It’s magnificent to be back. When I’m old with my teeth falling out, I’m sure the countryside will be great, quite calming.’
Of course, in reality, Jeremy had something beside the new programme to think about. He was quite as excited about having another child as Francie, and could scarcely contain himself before the next baby arrived. ‘We know it’s a girl because we’ve seen the scan,’ he said. ‘Unless it’s a boy with a very small … I don’t know how she [Francie] puts up with me. She can’t watch the news with me because I shout and scream and yell at everything and say, “I’d sort that out in ten minutes.” So she leaves the room. But she’s caring and kind and just rolls her eyes at my raving views on things.’ Another daughter, Katya, duly arrived.
Whatever excitement there might have been on the domestic front, though, he remained the showman he had always been. Back at work, as the date for the new chat show to air drew near, Clarkson became increasingly animated on the subject he was to discuss. ‘And can you smoke while scuba diving?’ asked Jeremy, by way of an example of the kind of questions he intended to ask. ‘It’s an important issue and we have to address it. I’ll never be able to keep my mouth shut, I know I won’t. If someone says cricket is interesting, I won’t be able to sit there and say, “Yeah, you’re right,” because it isn’t interesting. I’ll go, “Sorry, it’s not, and it’s time to stop it.”’
As to whether his strong opinions would make him a good chat show host, Clarkson appeared to be having an attack of the vapours here, too. ‘If you’re as opinionated as I am, you’re bound to alienate half the people half the time – or everybody all the time,’ he said anxiously. ‘I might have stones thrown at me afterwards! I’ll probably have to go and live in another country until people have forgotten it.’
But that country would not be the United States. Unexpectedly, for the States is exactly the kind of place you would have thought would appeal to a man like Jeremy, he didn’t like it, although he was quite clear as to why. ‘I used to like America very much, until I went there,’ he said. ‘It drives me absolutely potty. They make a law for everything. It’s illegal to shoot a tin of food in Idaho and you can’t keep a pet alligator in Florida! Who would want to? I was once told to uncross my legs for take-off on an American airline. Why? If I hit the ground at 600mph, the positioning of my legs is going to have no bearing on whether I live or die.’
Of course, there was no real chance of Jeremy leaving the country and anyway, if his new show did fail, he still had the backing of his family. Both he and Francie seemed to appreciate one another more as the years went by, although she could be quite wry about the new status now afforded him. ‘If we’d met now, we would never have been together,’ she said. ‘I would have been put off by his position and I’m quite sure that Jeremy would have been more cautious. When you have enjoyed the sort of success he’s enjoyed, people treat you very differently and he’d wonder why I was there. I see how girls flirt with him. We call them the ironing-board girls because they’re so slim and they’re all fluttering their eyelashes and smiling. I don’t feel jealous – why should I? Actually, I find it rather flattering to think I’m with a man who’s so much in demand.’
And anyway, his career, according to Jeremy, was something of a surprise. It had just come about by chance. ‘I’ve never had any ambition – in fact, I’ve always felt that it was a waste of time,’ he said. ‘All this has happened quite by accident. But now I’m here, I work a seven-day week because this sort of job doesn’t last very long and you’ve got to make hay while the sun shines. What I’m doing won’t last for ever. In ten years’ time, there’ll be someone younger and cleverer doing it. I don’t want to be kicking myself for not having taken full advantage of it all.’
As he took advantage of it, Jeremy continued to manage both self-deprecation and controversial opinions at the same time. Clarkson was fond of telling interviewers he drove at 100mph in the countryside and, asked whether he had a death wish, was adamant that this was not the case. ‘I drive at or below the speed limit on motorways because you’re likely to be caught and in towns and villages because it matters,’ he said. ‘I follow drivers who go 45mph along an open road and don’t reduce speed in a village. I’d remove their licences and birch them in public.’ But, he maintained, the speed limit should be increased to a minimum of 130mph on motorways. ‘Then you’d really have to concentrate, whereas at 70mph you can talk on the phone, eat a cheese sandwich and nod off. Of course, if I was a cyc
list living in Devon and wanting a quiet life, I’d find myself very offensive. Occasionally I meet Guardian or Observer readers who see me as the devil incarnate because I seem to champion speed and recklessness. If you express opinions, you’re bound to polarise people. You can’t please them all, and if you do, you’re grey.’
And with that, he was back on the attack. The French? ‘They eat garlic and the women don’t shave under their arms.’ The Spanish? ‘They murder bulls and can’t cook.’ The Germans? ‘Ready for another war.’ Motorbike riders? ‘I’m heterosexual and don’t enjoy dressing in leather.’ Environmentalists? ‘If others want to save the planet, good luck to them. I’m too busy going to parties.’ The Americans? ‘As dim as TocH’s [gaslights], they want to eliminate all risk through legislation. You can’t smoke within 40ft of a Federal building, but you can own a helicopter gunship and fire live bullets. Their lack of worldliness drives me barking.’ But he only did it to annoy because he knew it teases. ‘The trouble is, if you make jokes about women or homosexuals, everyone says, “How can you?”’ he said. ‘But it’s a free country, so say whatever you feel.’
And as long as he continued to describe cars as amusingly as he did, he could get away with it. Jeremy’s descriptive powers certainly showed no sign of flagging. He continued his diatribe against BMWs, not mellowed one jot by the fact that Francie had one, while summing up the characters of a whole raft of other car owners, too. BMWs are owned by ‘sporty and aggressive drivers. No one has ever been let out of a side turning by them. Saab owners are the nicest, going quietly about their business. Lotuses are fun in a breaky-down sort of way – the name stands for Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious. Volvos and Mercedes estates are for the suburban mummy, who can pull her headscarf further forward so she can barge her way through without seeing where she’s going. Shogun drivers feel superior to ordinary Earthlings, although they’re not robust cars. The E-type Jaguar is perhaps a sexual metaphor, but it’s not as good as sex, that’s for sure. Even bad sex is better.’