Jeremy Clarkson reveals he almost lost his leg in accident on Diddly Squat Farm
Jeremy Clarkson almost lost his leg in an accident on his farm, he has revealed.
The former Top Gear presenter stars in Clarkson’s Farm, a TV series which sees him grow crops and look after livestock on land he owns in the Cotswolds.
The 61-year-old was speaking on ITV's The Jonathan Ross show, which will be broadcast on Saturday evening.
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Clarkson said he thinks there are "more accidents in farming than all the other industries put together", following the incident.
Explaining what happened to him when he was putting fence posts into the ground, the presenter 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", he said. “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.”
The Doncaster-born broadcaster stars in the series Clarkson's Farm, which documents his experiences running Diddly Squat Farm in the Cotswolds.
He bought the farm in 2008 and it was run by a villager, but when he retired in 2019 Clarkson decided to see if he could run it himself.
Ahead of the launch of a new book, Diddly Squat: A Year on the Farm, the presenter told Jonathan Ross the idea for the show came about because he was contractually obliged to make a series for Amazon, but was bored of filming abroad.
“I thought what a lovely programme it would be to try and learn to be a farmer. I genuinely love it out there", he said.
The Amazon series has been described as a surprise hit. The popularity of the show has prompted fans to flock to the Chipping Norton area to buy goods from the farm's shop. Some locals say this has led to traffic problems.
Property company Rightmove said the show led to a 511% rise in searches for homes in Chadlington, the village where the farm is based. It said the area saw the biggest surge in interest in the whole of the UK in June 2021, compared to the previous year.
Singer-songwriter Sting, actor Riz Ahmed, and pop star Gary Barlow will also appear on Saturday's episode of The Jonathan Ross Show, which will air at 10.05pm on ITV.