Richard Hammond

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For other people named Richard Hammond, see Richard Hammond (disambiguation).

Richard Hammond

Richard Hammond in 2006

Born

Richard Mark Hammond

19 December 1969 (age 45)
Solihull, West Midlands, England, United Kingdom

Residence

Weston under Penyard, Herefordshire, England

Marylebone, London

Other names

Hamster

Education

Solihull School
Ripon Grammar School

Alma mater

Harrogate College of Art and Technology

Occupation

Television presenter,journalist, author, voice actor

Years active

1998, 2002present

Employer

The Daily Mirror

(prev. BBC, ITV & Sky)

Known for

Presenting:[show]

Home town

Solihull, West Midlands,

England

Height

5 ft 7 in (1.70 m)[1]

Spouse(s)

Amanda Etheridge (m. 2002)

Children

Parent(s)

Eileen and Alan Hammond

Richard Mark Hammond (born 19 December 1969) is an English presenter, writer, and
journalist. He co-hosted the car programme Top Gear with Jeremy Clarkson andJames May,
and presented series 14 of Brainiac: Science Abuse on Sky1. He also co-hosted Total
Wipeout with Amanda Byram on BBC One. Hammond presentedPlanet Earth
Live alongside Julia Bradbury. Richard will present a 75-minute special of Top Gear to finish
series 22 with unseen footage from the last three episodes. The special will be Clarkson's
last Top Gear episode, and he will not be featured in the studio link segments. The BBC
have not yet confirmed an air date. Two trailers have been released previewing the special.
Contents
[hide]

1 Early life
2 Career
o 2.1 Top Gear
o 2.2 Brainiac: Science Abuse
o 2.3 Other television work
3 Personal life
4 Charity work
5 Vampire dragster crash
6 Works
o 6.1 TV shows
o 6.2 Books
6.2.1 Car books
6.2.2 Children's books

6.2.3 Biographies
o 6.3 Video games
o 6.4 DVDs
o 6.5 Television advertisements
7 References
8 External links

Early life[edit]
Hammond was born in Solihull, West Midlands, and is the grandson of workers in
the Birmingham car industry.[2][3] In the mid-1980s Hammond moved with his family (mother
Eileen, father Alan, and younger brothers Andrew, writer of the 'Crypt' Series, and Nicholas)
to the North Yorkshire cathedral city of Ripon where his father ran aprobate business in the
market square. He attended Blossomfield Infant School in Shirley from the age of 3-7.
Originally a pupil of Solihull School, a fee-paying boys' independent school, he moved
to Ripon Grammar School, and from 1987 to 1989 attended Harrogate College of Art and
Technology.

Career[edit]
After graduation, Hammond worked for several BBC radio stations, including Radio
Cleveland, Radio York, Radio Cumbria, Radio Leeds, Radio Newcastle and Radio
Lancashire, before auditioning for Top Gear.[4]

Top Gear[edit]
Main article: Top Gear (2002 TV series)
Hammond became a presenter on Top Gear in 2002, when the show began in its present
format. He is sometimes referred to as "The Hamster" by fans and his co-presenters on Top
Gear due to his name and comparatively small stature.[5] His nickname was further reinforced
when on three separate occasions in series 7, he ate cardboard,[6] mimicking hamster-like
behaviour.
Following a high-speed dragster crash while filming in September 2006 near York,
Hammond returned in the first episode of series 9 (broadcast on 28 January 2007) to a
hero's welcome, complete with dancing girls, aeroplane-style stairs and fireworks. The show
also contained images of the crash, which had made international headlines, with Hammond
talking through the events of the day after which the audience broke into spontaneous
applause. Hammond then requested that the crash never be mentioned on the show again,
though all three Top Gear presenters have since referred to it in jokes during the news
segment of the programme. He told his colleagues, "The only difference between me now,
and before the crash, is that I like celery now and I didn't before".[7]
During the third episode of series sixteen, Hammond suggested that no one would ever want
to own a Mexican car, since cars are supposed to reflect national characteristics and so a
Mexican car would be "lazy, feckless, flatulent, overweight, leaning against a fence, asleep,
looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat."[8] Hammond
finished with the remark "I'm sorry, but can you imagine waking up and remembering you're
Mexican?!"[9] Following complaints, the BBC defended the broadcast of this segment on the
grounds that such national stereotyping was a "robust part" of traditional British humour.[10]
Following the BBC's decision not to renew Jeremy Clarkson's contract with the show on 25
March 2015,[11] Hammond's contract expired on 31 March.[12] In April he ruled out the
possibility of continuing to presentTop Gear, commenting via Twitter that "amidst all this talk
of us 'quitting' or not: there's nothing for me to 'quit'".[13] On the 12th June BBC 2 confirmed

that Top Gear will return with a 75-minute special with unseen challenges from series 22 with
studio links with Richard and James. Clarkson will not be doing the studio links. The BBC
have released two trailers showing what is to come. The premier date is still to be confirmed
by the BBC.