As a good left-wing lad raised by Guardian-reading parents who didn’t drive, I knew Jeremy Clarkson was tasteless and unpleasant. In my first year as a junior doctor, my surgical ward had one of his articles pinned to the office wall. It was off-putting to see his shabby name and a piece from a tabloid, but one day I read it all the same.
As I recall, he’d had some minor scrape and written a column mocking the paramedics who showed up to help. He didn’t want two tinkerers who weren’t medically trained, he sneered. No, he wanted Michael Schumacher to drive him to hospital and a supermodel, sitting scantily clad in the back of the ambulance, giving him the will to live until he arrived. I remember finding it funny, given it echoed a real debate in paramedic circles – ‘stay and play’ versus ‘scoop and run’. I knew well enough, however, to disapprove, and my disapproval kept a lid on my enjoyment.
Once I left that ward, life went back to being Clarkson-free – I didn’t read the Sun, and cars were no more to me than a means of transport. Then, around a decade ago, my late son, aged about seven, came into the kitchen. A friend of his had been round, and they had watched some television. What my son loved was natural history, but his friend, without us noticing, had introduced something new. ‘Mummy, daddy,’ my son said, when his friend had gone, ‘what’s female sexual appetite?’ There was a thoughtful pause. ‘And what does it have to do with handbrake turns?’
Top Gear was a revelation. A small boy got lessons in the pleasures of conversation, adventure and camaraderie, and picked up an incidental love of cars. His parents – and, once she was old enough, his sister – did too. The four of us watched together, which didn’t stop my son rewatching by himself. When we were out he chattered to us happily about the cars we saw, and sometimes he would attempt – occasionally with an edge of real success – spurts of Clarksonian commentary. Pastiche of one’s heroes is a great way to learn, and even if you fail you learn something about why you admire them.
I recall driving my son when he was nine or ten with his friend, the one who had introduced Top Gear. My son was singing the praises of our car. The friend, without fuss or boasting, made the reasonable objection that it perhaps wasn’t as good a vehicle as his father’s Porsche 911.
Gracefully, my son acknowledged the technical superiority of the 911, before rhapsodising about the superior soul of ours, its finer character, the lift it gave to your spirits and outlook. He said this with such gusto that we were all convinced. Our ten-year-old ex-police Skoda gave him pleasure. A lovely thing, seeing your son’s horizons widen, and realising he’s also widening yours.
Watching The Grand Tour became a family event. Bad television sucks the sociability out of life; great TV adds it back. The rural beauty of Clarkson’s Farm, when it came along, had the added appeal of being filmed near where we live. When Kaleb Cooper, terrified of needing to travel into London for the first time, was asked the furthest he had ever gone from Chipping Norton, he gave his answer as Banbury, which happened to be our home town.
It is unexpected, at least for me, that life should be richer for watching grown men messing about with cars
Last Christmas, my daughter brought us gifts from Clarkson’s farm. I think that on the first Christmas since it became just three of us, she was pleased to be able to give me something that reminded us of the hours spent as a family. I hope she noticed that the gifts of gin, mustard and chilli jam were gratefully received.
The fact these were well made mattered, not least because it left me feeling Clarkson hadn’t misused his celebrity to cheapen his admirers’ faith. Against my will, I had long ago joined their ranks. Whatever expands our sympathies and increases our joy is to be welcomed. ‘I am human,’ said Terence, ‘and nothing that is human is alien to me.’ He probably wasn’t thinking of Lamborghinis, but it still applies.
My daughter’s football team is next door to Clarkson’s farm – close enough that helpful people in high-vis attempt to wave me into his car park as I drive her to and from games. Now that series four has been released, the three of us are slowly enjoying watching it together. I remain ready to believe that Jeremy Clarkson can be obnoxious, but these days I’m aware that I can be too. I’m even suspicious, dear reader, about you. All the same, we may add more to each other’s lives than we take away.
It is unexpected, at least for me, that life should be richer for watching grown men messing about with cars. But much of the richness of life, like a routine drive in an old Skoda, or being given a jar of Jeremy’s ‘Hot Seed Mustard’, is unexpected.
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