Richrad Hammond reached another parenting milestone last week that he finds alarming. “My youngest daughter passed her driver’s license test,” she says.
“It was weird seeing him walk out the door alone for the first time. I thought, ‘Oh, that’s it then.’
Now best known for hosting high-octane auto shows, Top Gear and The Grand Tour, you can expect Richard to teach 18-year-old Willow and 21-year-old older sister Isabella to drive alone. Unfortunately, their services were not requested.
Although she was allowed to sit in the car while she was making uphills and three-point turns with both of her daughters, she had to agree not to speak. Till the end!
Richard Hammond, 52, said he was allowed to sit in the car while his daughters were learning to drive, but was not allowed to say anything.
“I dated them, but only for legal reasons, and I had to keep quiet most of the time because their driving instructor taught them how to drive to pass the driving test. Anything I say is going to ruin everything.”
She doesn’t seem angry about it. “Oh my god, no, I couldn’t teach them to drive to pass exams. I doubt I will pass. In fact, I’m pretty sure I won’t.’
Are you saying you’re going too fast? Drive as Jeremy Clarkson watches, ready to criticize you for your skills?
“No, I could probably curb those sorts of trends, but everything in testing has changed since I did. Now you have to open the door a certain way to avoid traffic. I’m pretty sure I’m going to fail.
Frankly, 52-year-old Richard is a man who knows he feels anxious in the car. He is famous for his epic events as well as for his presentations on television.
While filming Top Gear in 2006, he was in a coma for two weeks and suffered a brain injury after a catastrophic accident. While traveling at over 300 mph in a jet Vampire, a front tire exploded, causing the car to roll over.
Fortunately, the person was removed from the vehicle and was taken to the hospital alive.
Ten years later, he had another imminent accident, this time on the Grand Tour, when his Rimac Concept One supercar capsized, rolled off a Swiss mountain and exploded in flames. Still, perhaps, sitting next to a young student causes a different kind of terror?
Richard is pictured with his eldest daughter, Isabella. When he filmed Top Gear in 2006, he was in a coma for two weeks and suffered a brain injury after a catastrophic accident.
He is laughing. “I would like to tell you that sitting next to my teenage girls while learning to drive is scarier than driving down a Swiss mountain in a burning supercar, but it’s not because my girls are actually good drivers. † I think they may have learned by watching me make mistakes.’
Richard is completely out of the car for his latest TV project starring in the Channel 4 show Crazy Contraptions, which he sees as a kind of Bake Off for nerds. The show features teams competing in an intricate chain reaction machine that can do simple household chores like feeding the dog or flushing the toilet.
Also known as Rube Goldberg machines after the American cartoonist whose work has characterized them, these extraordinary devices have recently taken over social media thanks to enthusiasts like leading authority Zach Umperovitch.
Zach is a judge on the show, advising the competing teams over the course of four days to build massive structures using only household appliances selected from a selection on offer.
The quests are crazy, of course, “but not so crazy when people ask them to design a cake shaped like something else,” says Richard. However, the process is addictive to watch, and like Bake Off, it doesn’t matter if competitors fail or not.
I don’t want to take risks. I’m a father and husband and I don’t want to remember it
“It’s not always good, but it’s part of the tension,” he says. “This is where the frustrating part comes in.”
He seems like an over-excited schoolboy for this, an attractive jerk to the nerd inside him. He’s the type who wonders if he can use a pulley system to pour milk over cereal in the kitchen without getting out of bed (exactly the kind of chore set in the show).
When he’s not doing TV shows, he runs a classic car restoration business. “Everything fascinates me,” she says.
“My maternal grandfather, my grandfather, was a coachman and engineer who knew how to build anything, and he had a huge influence.”
He and his family live in a £2m Herefordshire castle with large outbuildings for their trade, which has become an obsession during the lockdown. “When I reach middle age, I find myself building things and having fun doing things,” she admits.
Sounds like a midlife crisis weakening the classic red sports car? ‘Openly. My midlife crisis will likely be about dismantling and rebuilding the red sports car”.
It’s been interesting to see what the Grand Tour trio has been up to since the pandemic stopped playing in their distant cinematic raids. They’ve all been busy with smaller projects, but who would have guessed that the show on Jeremy Clarkson’s ranch would become another television giant.
Was Richard surprised? “No, because I knew it was his passion,” she says.
Richard’s love of classic cars also led to a TV show. “For the same reasons: it was a real passion, I would have done it anyway, but during the quarantine ‘What can a TV show do?’ I started to think.
By the end of the year it will present another program where it runs some British rivers its length. “I’m very lucky because whether it’s restoring a classic car, walking along the river, or watching the building process, these things are things I would do anyway, but I do it for work.”
River Show feels safer than some of its previous shows (besides the risk of falling into it, of course). Does he take less risk in middle age?
It was rumored that he had received a warning from his wife, Mindy, years ago, and that he had every reason to worry about her.
“It’s not like Mindy said ‘You can’t…’
Talking about the lasting effects of brain damage is always difficult, especially since it’s impossible to quantify them. He certainly suffered from memory loss in the years following his first major accident, but he says it may have nothing to do with brain damage.
“It’s been a few years, but it was clearly a brain injury, in my case it was a frontal lobe, and I spent a lot of time examining myself. But there were other changes in my life that affected us all in middle age.
“My memory isn’t as good as it used to be, but maybe because I’m 52.” He seems almost happy to be 52 years old.
“I must say that I am now fifty years old. I’d rather be an adult! ‘
In January, he reveals that Richard did something he never expected: he’s back in his (rebuilt) Vampire supercar for the first time. A team of car enthusiasts painstakingly restored the burning car and followed its progress on YouTube.
He had an interest, especially when he found out (disturbing?) that this restoration was taking place “on my neck of the jungle”. So she went to have a look and—to her surprise—she agreed to get behind the wheel.
I rediscovered those moments often, as far as I’m concerned they were my last.
He admits that this is a big deal. “It was actually a very strange experience, quite disturbing because although I remember going in before, I couldn’t remember going out, so technically I was still inside.”
Did she find herself throwing herself back into possibly the worst time of her life? “God, yes, of course, because I rediscovered those final moments so often.
“I think it was my last minutes. However, when I saw this machine trying to kill me, I was fascinated.
“It was very important that he failed and I wanted to face it. He was a bit of a demon and still having demons doesn’t help in life.
“If you can put them aside, you probably should. I haven’t actually been there while I’m still on the move, but I might check again.’
Most importantly, he managed to calm some ghosts by simply getting out of that car.
“It was a strange feeling to know that the last time I was taken to the hospital with a brain injury in a helicopter. This time I went out and had a cup of tea! ‘
- Crazy Mechanisms, Richard Hammond, Friday, 8:00 PM
Source: Daily Mail
