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Richard Hammond

Formerly one of the co-presenters of Top Gear, known for being the shortest presenter, he is often affectionately named Hamster

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About

Gender: Male

Nationality:

Languages: English

Travels from: United Kingdom

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Biography Highlights

Born in Birmingham in 1970, Hammond studied photography and television production before beginning his broadcasting career at BBC Radio York.

Biography

Richard Hammond’s background

From there, Richard went on to work at BBC Radio Cumbria, Leeds and Lancashire, before leaving in 1995 to follow his dream of working in motoring. His ultimate ambition was always to present motoring programmes on TV.

After leaving the BBC, he initially took a job in PR and was involved in corporate events for clients including the Ferrari Owners’ Club and Renault Sport. But it was not until 1998 that he was given his first motoring job on TV, presenting Motorweek on Satellite channel Men & Motors.

He then proceeded to work on a number of different motoring and lifestyle programmes for cable and satellite channels before realising his dream of presenting Top Gear in 2002. Hammond says that BBC Two’s Top Gear, the show which has made him a household name, is “the show you aspire to present”.

The show currently attracts between four and six million viewers. It is regarded as a cult success, and Hammond has often been the butt of jokes from co-presenter Jeremy Clarkson.

It was whilst filming with Top Gear that Richard crashed in a jet-powered traveling at over 300 mph. Richard is one of the only people to have ever survived such a crash.

Hammond has also presented science and nature programmes such as Should I Worry About? on BBC One, billed as his “a journey to find the truth behind the headlines”.

Other TV projects for the BBC have included presenting inventing programme Battle of the Geeks, sci-fi game show Time Commanders and appearing as a team captain on comedy motoring quiz Petrol Heads.

He also presented ITV’s eponymous Richard Hammond’s Five O’Clock Show. Until recently, he also hosted Sky One’s Brainiac.

Unsurprisingly, Hammond is a genuine car enthusiast, owning among other vehicles, a 1957 Land Rover, a 1969 Dodge Charger and a Porsche 928.

Videos

Books

On the Edge

Richard Hammond is one of our most in-demand and best-loved television presenters. In September 2006, he suffered a serious brain injury following a high-speed car crash. ON THE EDGE is his compelling account of life before and after the accident and an honest description of his recovery, full of drama and incident. An adrenalin junkie long before his association with Top Gear, Richard tells the story of his life, from the small boy showing off with ridiculous stunts on his bicycle to the adolescent with a near-obsessive attraction to speed and the smell of petrol. After a series of jobs in local radio, he graduated to television and eventually to Top Gear. His insights into the personalities, the camaraderie and the stunts for which Top Gear has become famous, make compulsive reading. It was whilst filming for Top Gear that Richard was involved in a high speed crash, driving a jet-powered dragster.

On the Road: Growing Up in Eight Journeys - My Early Years

In a new and very appropriate form of autobiography, Richard Hammond tells his life story through a series of significant driving episodes. He’s a child in the back seat of Dad’s car on the way to the seaside in Weston-Super-Mare. He’s on his first bike, a red one, in Solihull; then on his first motorcycle, a Honda MTX50. He’s at the wheel of his first car, and with his first girlfriend. He is driving a furniture delivery van as part of his first job in and around Ripon. Now he is showing off with a friend, risking everything. Then he is surging ahead in an open-top, a successful TV star. Next, a car crash that made national headlines. This is an emotional road map in which each chapter has its own registration number, and its own distinctive interior. This memoir surges on to its destination, reversing or moving quickly through the gears, reliving the central episodes and conflicts of Richard’s life. Although there are precious few road-rage monologues against four-wheel drivers and men in vests in white vans, Richard Hammond’s readers will quickly recognize the funny, self-deprecating, and balanced ease that has made him one of Britain’s best-loved writers and television hosts.

A Short History of the Motorcycle

This entertaining guide charts the history of the bike from its origin as a cheap means of transport to its modern incarnations: a symbol of rebellion, a high-tech racing machine and the rich kid’s plaything. Richard Hammond, passionate biker and collector of bikes, looks at the machines that have propelled people across the world to work, to school – and occasionally to their doom. With his trademark expertise and wit, Hammond examines bikers of every type, from the happy farmer trundling through fields on his Honda Cub to the Hells Angel terrorising towns on their hog.

As You Do: Adventures with Evel, Oliver, and the Vice President of Botswana

Moving quickly on from the devastating crash that nearly killed him, Richard ranges widely over his life and timesa visit to Glastonbury with James May reminds of him of his early years of playing in a band and how and why he never quite made it as a rock star; the stunts and other perils that come his way like the Top Gear North Pole race (why is it Richard who is out in the howling elements in a dog sled while the others are in the heated cab of an all-terrain vehicle?); Africa where he falls in love with and repatriates a stray car; and the U.S. (once to be chased by rednecks in middle America, the other in pursuit of his hero Evel Knievel); his passion for cars, what he owns and why, and although he loves his wife why it is a toss-up whether he says hello to the wife or the cars first. Balancing home and family with a crazy, peripatetic working life (or not, sometimes), the Hamster is well and truly back on the wheel.