Richard
Izzy came as a surprise. I was working as a freelance presenter with Granada TV in 2000 when Mindy told me she was pregnant. We weren’t yet married and Izzy still takes great delight in reminding us that she was the daughter who started the whole family.
Fortunately, when it came to her birth I managed to reach the hospital without incident. It was a caesarean delivery but I stood behind a screen while Mindy did the work. All of a sudden a yellowish, screaming thing was held up and that was Izzy. I had tried to be involved as much as possible before that — Mindy and I went to the “huffy-puffy” antenatal meetings together but we still had no idea how a child would change our lives.
Izzy was an angelic baby, although there are actually two views on that because I was often away filming and didn’t see the full picture. Mindy was the one working flat out looking after our daughter.
We lived in a little flat in Cheltenham and would walk round the shops on a Saturday afternoon looking at all the things we couldn’t afford. Even when I started on Top Gear in 2002, there were tough times. I was knackered from travelling and the money wasn’t great in the beginning. When our second daughter, Willow, arrived in 2004 it was even harder. It sounds ridiculous now given how lucky I’ve been with my job, but there were nights when I drove home from a shoot and parked round the corner until I knew bathtime was finished. I was pretty crappy as a father.
Today when I’m sitting in some back-of-beyond place alongside a young member of the production team whose wife has just had a baby, I feel sorry for them. If they are withdrawn I say it’s not only your job to bring home the bacon but also to provide the inspiration. If your family see you travelling and doing amazing things, maybe one day they will chase their dream.
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Izzy and Willow get on fantastically — they love and support each other. Like Mindy, they also adore horses — I’m familiar with the controls but riding’s not my thing. We have always kept a menagerie of animals at our home in Herefordshire. It’s a 600-year-old castle that we bought in 2008. I wanted the girls to feel like they came from somewhere. It’s proper farming country, unlike where Jeremy Clarkson farms in the Cotswolds.
Growing up in the countryside has also helped them avoid some of the publicity around me. Even so, when Top Gear ended in dramatic fashion eight years ago, the spotlight was very much on James May, Jeremy and me. One day James came over and we took Izzy out for a KFC. When the bill arrived Izzy said loudly that she would pay because James and I didn’t have a job between us. That had the restaurant in hysterics.
While the girls had no interest in cars, Izzy loved to ride on the back of a motorbike with me. We would head out to the Welsh borders and visit castles, chatting to each other on the intercom. Later I taught her the basics of driving in one of our fields but I didn’t think teaching her on the road was a good idea.
Izzy is a fast learner, something we noticed when we hosted dinner parties. She realised at a young age that if she could be part of the conversation, entertaining and funny, she wouldn’t have to go to bed so early. I’m thrilled she is interested in media, but she has just finished her degree at Bristol University and has time to find her career path. We have a few ideas to work on together but I won’t be upset if she chooses a different direction.
She has brought a boyfriend home to meet us. My only fear at the time was opening the door and seeing a long-haired teenage biker, somebody just like me who I would have told to bugger off. I do trust her judgment and I’m aware that I won’t be the principal man in her life for ever. But for as long as I am, it’s great to be mates.
Izzy
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Dad is quite funny, although he tells a lot of irritating “dad jokes”. It’s as though he saves them all up and then, once he’s on a roll, it’s hard to stop him. If I was going to be nice, I’d say he is hard-working and very driven. On the flipside, he is short. In fact the whole family is small. I’m 4ft 11in. When Jeremy comes over he bangs his head on the beams in our kitchen. We live in a hobbit castle.
Cars were always a big part of growing up. Each one became a member of the family. Duchess was an old, classic Range Rover, then we had Wally-car — a blue Land Rover Defender that Dad was eventually forced to sell. He was on Top Gear by then but we were struggling financially — I sobbed like a baby when Wally went. Ironically a few years later Dad bought him back and we drove him to the south of France on holiday.
I passed my driving test at 17 and started negotiations with Dad over my first car. I thought a Range Rover Evoque was a perfectly reasonable suggestion but the compromise was a Mini. It turned out a four-wheel drive might have been safer for my first outing behind the wheel. It had been snowing all week and once it had cleared I drove Willow to school in Malvern. The street is very steep and hadn’t been gritted, so I lost control. As we slid backwards, I played bumper cars with several parked cars, which took some explaining.
Dad was away a lot filming Top Gear and later The Grand Tour. Wherever he was in the world we spoke to him every evening. I’d ramble on about my dramatic day at school while he was stuck in a mosquito-infested rainforest or tackling a death-defying mountain pass.
When Dad had his dragster accident in 2006, I didn’t understand why he wasn’t there for my sixth birthday. Mum explained there had been a crash. Wills and I didn’t know he was travelling at almost 320mph and was in a coma, so we were anxious to see him in hospital when he came round. Dad’s eye was a complete mess and Mum told him not to remove the dressing because it would frighten us. Of course, Dad being Dad, he opened it and I ran out screaming.
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I was older when his electric hypercar crashed and caught fire in Switzerland in 2017. He was lucky to get out of the cockpit in time. We joke about it now and the family is very open about the dangers involved.
I have more appreciation for what Dad does now. He is very particular, he likes things his way. He can be stubborn. It’s hard to get around that and I’m the only one who can make him change his mind — sometimes. At least at home he is outnumbered by women three to one, otherwise God knows what he would be like.
Strange habits
Richard on Izzy
Sucking her thumb — although she might say that’s anxiety because I’m not there
Izzy on Richard
Every issue has to be watered down to the simplest fact that can be turned into a bumper sticker in his head
Series 3 of Richard Hammond’s Workshop starts on October 23 on Discovery+
