JEREMY CLARKSON Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson, who was born on 11 April 1960 in Doncaster to teacher Shirley Ward and travelling salesman Eddie Clarkson; his parents ran a business selling tea cosies. Clarkson, as he is affectionately known, is an British broadcaster and journalist who specialises in motoring. He writes weekly columns for The Sunday Times and The Sun, but is better known for his role on the BBC TV show Top Gear, which won an International Emmy in 2005. Interestingly enough, he and James May were the first people to reach the magnetic North Pole in a car, which was broadcast in a Top Gear special on 25 July 2007 on BBC Two. "Not a man given to considered opinion", according to the BBC, Clarkson is known to be opinionated and forthright in his views. In the Daily Mirror of 9 June 2000, he was described by Tony Parsons as a "dazzling hero of political incorrectness". Additionally, he has gained plaudits from The Economist, on the subject of road pricing in UK when they described him as a "skilful propagandist for the motoring lobby". His parents put the young Jeremy"s name down in advance for a number of public schools with no idea how they were going to pay the fees, until at the last moment, when he was 13, they made two Paddington Bear stuffed toys for each of their children. These proved so popular that they started selling them through the business with sufficient success to be able to pay the fees for Clarkson to attend Repton School. Incidentally, he was later expelled for "drinking, smoking and generally making a nuisance of himself." As a pre-pubescent youth, Clarkson played the role of a public schoolboy, J.C.T. Jennings, in a BBC radio Children"s Hour serial adaptation of Anthony Buckeridge"s Jennings novels until his voice broke. His first job was as a travelling salesman for his parents" business selling Paddington Bear toys, after which he trained as a journalist with the Rotherham Advertiser. For an episode of the first series of BBC"s Who Do You Think You Are? broadcast in November 2004, Clarkson was invited to investigate his family history. It included the story of his great-great-great grandfather John Kilner (1792–1857), who invented the Kilner jar: a receptacle for preserved fruit. Clarkson married his agent/manager, Frances Cain, in May 1993 in and the couple currently live in the town of Chipping Norton, situated in the Cotswolds, with their three children (born August 1994, March 1996, and November 1998). Clarkson formerly had a flat as a base in London for working, but after selling this the couple bought a lighthouse as a second home on Frances" family home of the Isle of Man. Known for buying him car-related gifts, for Christmas 2007 Clarkson"s wife bought him a Grosser Mercedes. In spite of his penchant for fast driving and high performance cars, Clarkson has been reported as having a clean licence. Nonetheless, he readily discusses high speed driving on public roads; in a November 2005 article in The Sunday Times, Clarkson wrote, while discussing the Bugatti Veyron, "On a recent drive across Europe I desperately wanted to reach the top speed but I ran out of road when the needle hit 240mph", and later, in the same article, "From the wheel of a Veyron, France is the size of a small coconut. I cannot tell you how fast I crossed it the other day. Because you simply wouldn’t believe me." Clarkson is most associated with the British motoring programme Top Gear, which he presented from 27 October 1988 to 3 February 2000, in the programme"s original format, and then again from 20 October 2002, when it was relaunched in a new format after a brief period off the air. His current co-presenters are James May and Richard Hammond. It is now the most-watched TV show on BBC Two, and is also shown in over 100 countries around the world. It won an International Emmy in 2005, for the best non-scripted entertainment show that was not broadcast in the United States. Clarkson said: "I didn"t attend the awards ceremony because I didn"t know that we had won, and I only found out after a 4am text message, whilst I was busy writing the script for the next show...." |
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