Leigha Center
Richard Hammond looks tired. Distracted. Is he OK? ‘Yeah,’ he says wearily. ‘I’m 55. Things change. That’s what happens at this age. Big things change.’ The dapper chap from Top Gear, The Grand Tour and Total Wipeout is usually so chipper, but today there’s a sadness he can’t seem to shake off. And that’s understandable, given all he’s been through in the past year.
First his long, successful screen partnership with great mates James May and Jeremy Clarkson came to an end, with an elegiac final episode of The Grand Tour. ‘That was a big loss. Huge.’ Then his father Alan died in a hospice at the age of 80, from cancer. They were close. ‘I loved him dearly.’
And a third blow came in January when Richard and Mindy Hammond announced their marriage was over after 23 years. ‘Let’s get something out of the way straight away,’ the presenter says in the first episode of his new series of Richard Hammond’s Workshop. The show is about his struggles to run a classic car restoration business, but this time he feels the need to address the rumours. ‘There has been a slight change in my circumstances recently. I got divorced. Which means I now live here.’
Richard used to be the master of Bollitree Castle, the sprawling Grade II-listed mansion in Herefordshire he shared with Mindy. Now we see him in a rented farmhouse in the countryside. The decor looks like a bland hotel but there are misty fields and a vintage dove-grey Jaguar outside as Richard insists, ‘I like it. It’s got amazing views, a place to keep some of my cars and bikes and best of all it’s closer to the workshop.’ Then the cheerfulness drops. ‘I’m trying to put a silver lining on this. It’s been a tough few years, but it’s not all bad.’
Richard is dressed in familiar snappy style when we meet at a hotel in west London – skinny cream chinos, a fitted white shirt and a natty powder-blue jacket – but there are bags under his eyes. His goatee has been salted and peppered over the years.
I recognise his air of bewilderment as a sign of grief, having lost my own father recently. We sympathise with each other, shake hands and share a moment, but Richard says he’s determined to see things positively. ‘I’ve always believed – and this sounds like therapy talk but it was my own thought – that nothing has happened to you until you react to it. It’s your reaction that defines it. Absolutely. You have total choice on that. I include my brain injury and the recovery afterwards.’
Fans of Top Gear will remember he crashed a jet-powered dragster at super high speed in 2006. Richard was in a coma for a fortnight and suffered brain injuries that affected his memory and emotions. The recovery was long, but he did return to work and described his experiences. ‘That was a choice: choosing to make that a good thing, to write a book about it that millions of people read and benefited from. So that’s what I’ll do.’
He continues, ‘Whatever happens to us, we can decide. Maybe not in the moment: I didn’t decide, as the car was going over at 320mph: ‘I’m going to make this a good thing.’ But there came a moment when I thought, ‘Right, my reaction to this is going to be positive.’ That’s what you have to do. Well, it’s what I do.’
Yes, he’s comparing the trauma of the past year to his car crash. So-called friends of the family have suggested to reporters – anonymously, of course – that there was nobody else involved in the divorce but it was Mindy’s choice. I notice he’s talking as if it is something that has happened to him, rather than his own doing, so is that right? Richard stares for a moment then picks his words carefully. ‘In terms of that particular issue that’s a decision we took, as we said at the time. We put out a statement and it still stands.’
The couple did indeed say in January: ‘Our marriage is coming to an end, but we’ve had an amazing 28 years together and two incredible daughters… We will always be in each other’s lives and are proud of the family we created.’
What’s his attitude now, eight months on? ‘It’s as I said in the show: ‘OK, that’s happened. Moving on.’ This may be too soon, but can he see himself looking for another relationship? Richard winces, sucks in air through his teeth and says, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t got time. Right now I’m coming to the end of a series and then… that will be for me to think about.’
Richard Hammond’s Workshop is all about The Smallest Cog, the garage he set up in Hereford five years ago to repair his own classic cars and others’. TV star Debbie McGee, Paul Daniels’ widow, is a client in the new series, with a flood-damaged Mercedes brought back from ruin by Richard’s skilled mechanics.
But the company has been in trouble for all four series. ‘We’ve been through the mill. Bloody hell, it’s been hard at times. Why? Because of my lack of management ability and the market: it’s not an easy time to be setting out to restore expensive cars, when people are more concerned about the rising cost of living.’
Has he lost money? ‘God, yeah. Tons of it.’ A million? ‘Half.’ Half a million? ‘Yes. And also, I sold a load of my cars and bikes when I set up, to buy all the expensive equipment. I sold a Lotus Esprit 350 Sport, a Bentley S2, a 1969 Porsche 911T, a Honda Gold Wing, a Kawasaki Z900…’ The list goes on and amounts to vehicles worth at least a couple of hundred thousand pounds. Was there a point when he thought the business was a mistake? ‘Yeah. Most weeks I’ve thought, ‘This just doesn’t work.’
Surely he can take a loss, having made millions from telly? ‘My pockets are not limitlessly deep,’ says Richard. ‘I have to earn what I spend. I wouldn’t want to throw it away. And these are people’s actual jobs. It’s not a game.’
There are obvious comparisons to his old mucker’s big hit Clarkson’s Farm, but Hammond’s motivations are also personal. ‘My grandfather apprenticed as a cabinet maker and went into coach building, then cars, in Birmingham, he could work wood, metal, any material. It was always an ambition of mine to have a workshop, as a means of getting involved in the industry properly.’
One of his proudest moments was buying a hand-built Morgan 44 Sport in British Racing Green for his own father. ‘He was thrilled. He loved that car. Mum and Dad drove it down to France and Italy on holiday.’
Richard’s eyes begin to glisten as he talks about Alan, who became very ill but bore his suffering with grace. ‘He was utterly magnificent last year: as gentle and as kind-hearted as we’d always known he was. It was the most breathtaking thing to watch. He made it beautiful. I thanked him for it, and he knows that’s how I felt, how we all felt.’
His voice cracks with emotion. ‘When he was in the hospice in the last stages I would sit with him and talk and we would go for an imaginary walk around Buttermere in the Lake District, which we know very well. I could talk him through every step of it and he would lie there and smile. Or we’d go and lie on a moor in our minds and listen to the skylarks. It was beautiful. The mind is an amazing place.’
Alan died in October, although this was not made public until the New Year. ‘For one of the first times in my life, I threw work over. I just rang and said, ‘Sorry everybody, I’ve got to be left out.’ Sometimes Richard forgets his father has gone. ‘It’s the strangest thing. Something will be happening and I will think, ‘I must go and tell Dad.’ Then I realise, ‘Oh. I can’t.’ My brothers feel the same thing.’ Has he tried speaking to his father out loud? ‘Yeah, why not. I’ll have a little chat sometimes. These people exist forever because they’re part of the pattern of our lives. Dad is always in my ‘now’ because he is woven into me.’
Richard owns the green Morgan now and he races vintage cars, but is more aware than ever of his responsibilities. ‘I don’t take unnecessary risks. I have two beautiful daughters and I don’t want their father to suddenly exit stage left.’
Izzy was born first, 24 years ago. ‘She used to come out with me on the back of a motorcycle when she was about ten.’ He’s smiling as he thinks about it. ‘We had helmet comms. That’s really good for father-daughter time, because you’re not looking at each other, so the conversation can go wherever you like.’
She graduated from Bristol University in 2023 and now makes podcasts with her dad and brightens up the new series, but also works for other outlets. ‘She’s establishing herself as a car journalist in her own right. Obviously I could open the door, but what she did then was down to her,’ he says. ‘Now I don’t know what she’s doing most of the time. The day will come when I’m happy just to pitch up and bring her packed lunch. I feel that with both my daughters.’
His youngest is 22. ‘Willow is into horses and she’s really focusing on art at the moment, which is great to see.’ She is less keen to be filmed. ‘She doesn’t have to be, although she’s hilarious on camera. They both are, because they’ve grown up with it all their lives.’
Has having daughters changed his attitudes towards women? ‘Yeah, definitely. I’m the eldest of three sons and have worked in worlds traditionally male-dominated, but which are thankfully now being opened up to women.’
Top Gear was very blokey, and The Grand Tour was softer but still very much about the lads. ‘We weren’t blokey,’ he protests. ‘We were more sensitive than that.’ He changes tack. ‘I am a bloke. There’s nothing wrong with that. Some people are blokes, but there’s nothing toxic about it. Inclusivity, approachability, acceptability – none of those things are denied by being a bloke.’
Are he, May and Clarkson still mates? ‘Yeah, I spoke to both of them this week. People want to know that we all hate each other, but it’s not true. We couldn’t have spent so much time together if we did, there would have been a murder.’
Have they really finished for good? ‘Yeah.’ For sure? He sounds hesitant. ‘Well, yes. We agreed. We were well aware we were getting a bit older. But who knows? It’s an ever-changing world. We’ll see. There’s nothing planned.’
There have been so many endings in his life lately, it must be nice to launch a new series. ‘It’s that season. Autumn is melancholy and misty, but it was a beautiful crisp morning and I actually feel a blossoming, because of the new school year,’ says Richard, again trying to stay positive. ‘I quite like September for that, I always have done. It’s a new start.’
Richard Hammond’s Workshop returns on 6 October on Discovery+.
Source: Dailymail.co.uk | Read the Full Story…
