Jeremy Clarkson nearly lost his leg in an accident on his Diddly Squat Farm.
Jeremy Clarkson has revealed he could have lost a leg in a farming accident
The 61-year-old TV star turned life on his own farm into a series for Amazon, with 'Clarkson’s Farm' showing how he and his team work the land and look after the livestock in the Cotswolds.
During an appearance on 'The Jonathan Ross Show', Clarkson - who has penned a new book 'Diddly Squat: A Year On The Farm' - discussed the potentially lethal life of farmer as he discussed how there are “more accidents in farming than all the other industries put together”, and he himself was almost reduced to one leg when a piece of machinery went wrong.
He said: “I got this thing called a telehandler, it’s like a JCB thing. I thought ‘I’ll just use its front to push the post in.’ It got halfway into the ground and the fence was leaning on it and it flicked back. How it didn’t take my leg off … I didn’t walk properly for a week. This was a quarter of a tonne of fence post.”
When the former 'Top Gear' presenter first purchased the farm in 2008 he let someone else run it for him, but when his staff member retired in 2019, Clarkson decided he would take on the challenge of running a farm himself, and the documentary series chronicling his efforts happened by accident.
He spilled: “It was an accident. I was contractually obliged – I had to make a programme on my own. I thought ‘I’m slightly bored of Terminal 5. I’ll film at home on the farm.’
“I thought what a lovely programme it would be to try and learn to be a farmer. I genuinely love it out there.”
Jeremy also spoke about his super-popular sidekick on the show, farming expert Kaleb Cooper
He said: “He’s entrepreneurial, that’s how I’d describe him.
“The [farm] shop is a huge success and consequently we’ve had to mow a field near it so people can park there and it’s really a mud bath. Kaleb now goes up and charges people £15 to tow their cars out."
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