Richard Hammond
Richard Hammond, (born December 19 1969), is an award winning British television presenter best known for co-presenting Top Gear along with James May and Jeremy Clarkson from 2002 onwards. Earlier in his career he worked at Radio York and Radio Cumbria, before going on to present a number a daytime lifestyle shows and motoring programmes on Men & Motors. Along with his work on Top Gear he also currently presents Brainiac: Science Abuse on Sky One, Should I Worry About...? on BBC One and Time Commanders on BBC Two. He also presented Crufts 2005. Most recently he was seen presenting The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding the Legend, where he rebuilt the House of Lords and blew it up as Guy Fawkes would have, had he succeeded. His weekly column can be read in the motoring section of the Daily Mirror each Friday.
As of Tuesday the 3rd of January 2006 Richard is the eponymous star of 'Richard Hammond's 5 o'clock show' with his co-star Mel Giedroyc of Late Lunch fame. The programme, which discusses a wide range of random and amusing subjects, is shown every weekday on ITV.
Originally from the West Midlands, in the mid 1980s Hammond moved with his family (mother Eileen, father Alan, and brothers Andrew and Nicholas) to the Yorkshire market town of Ripon where his father ran a probate business in the market square. A pupil of Ripon Grammar School, from 1987 to 1989 he attended Harrogate College of Art and Technology and was friends with author and academic Jonathan Baldwin. He then went onto gain a degree in photography and television production.
His height (5'7"), or lack of it, is the source of much whimsical banter between him and Jeremy Clarkson (6'4") on Top Gear, with Jeremy often placing pictures of cars high up on the 'Top Gear "cool wall" during arguments with Hammond in order to win. When driving a Bowler Wildcat off-road vehicle, he exclaimed, "I am a driving God!", much to the amusement of Clarkson and May, making the incident the stuff of Top Gear folklore. He is referred to, mostly affectionately, as The Hamster by fans of the show, and occasionally by his co-presenters. In the seventh series of the show, He was accused of having his teeth whitened by Clarkson. He responded with "Mine have gone whiter, naturally, in the same way that yours have gone green."
In July 2005, Hammond won the dubious accolade of being voted number one in a Heat magazine poll of the top "weird celebrity crushes".
He lives near Cheltenham with his wife Amanda (whom he married in 2002) and their two young daughters, Isabella and Willow. He also has three horses, four dogs, two cats, a rabbit and handful of chickens and sheep along with a collection of vehicles that include two Land Rovers, a Suzuki GSXR1000, a Dodge Charger, a Porsche 911, a Morgan V6 Roadster and several kit cars.