On the Edge!

As my friends, followers and readers will know I do quite fancy the Top Gear presenter, Richard Hammond (RH), I would call it a teenage crush due to it lasting for all of my secondary school years. *Oops*. Still to this day, I couldn't tell you what it was that floated my teenage eyes 8 years ago.  

*Insert biographical extract here*: Richard Hammond was an adrenalin junkie long before joining Top Gear. From the small boy showing off his bicycle stunts to the adolescent with a near-obsessive attraction to speed, he then worked in local radio before graduating to television. It was while filming for Top Gear, driving a jet-powered dragster on 20/09/06 at speeds of over 300mph, that a tyre burst and the car crashed leaving him hovering near death with a serious brain injury.

I have owned “On the Edge” for 7 years, since its release in 2007, but up until this very thundery evening have been yet to discuss it, surprisingly I have decided to write about it now, just to get it off my chest now because I don’t think my English literature teachers would appreciate it as a work of literary art.  On The Edge is a gripping account of his life before working in local radio and starting off in the public eye in front of Top Gear audiences and after the accident. His wife Mindy tells of the anxious hours and days of watching and waiting until he finally emerged from the coma. She and Richard then piece together the stages of his recovery as his shattered mind slowly reformed, culminating in Richard’s return home and his triumphant reappearance in front of the cameras.

Hammond and Co

When it first came out, the reason for 90% of its sales was to do with most readers whether male or female wanting to find out what it was really like driving at 300mph, crashing at those speeds and then living to tell the brutal story. So, like myself you read through the introductory chapters which explain life before Top Gear, which included working on cable television and local radio. Here we see that this adrenaline seeking was always inside and when there was a risky job in the pipe line it was R who was prepared to do it for the “buzz”. Then what most readers have been preparing themselves for, the story that gripped the nation and kept newspapers outside a Leeds hospital waiting for news, the 300mph crash. In these remaining chapters we as readers learn many things the first is, is that Hammond actually brainstormed and suggested the jet car idea, not the Top Gear team. Hammond recounts the memory of the day’s events leading up to the actual crash, here we learn the enormity of safety precautions that were taken despite many refusing to believe so. One thing that I picked up whilst reading the chapters and elements that RH wrote was that, the events leading up to the crash came across more like a timeline then biographical meaning that sometimes you felt that you were reading an expert report rather than just a writer. Nevertheless, it is still incredibly empowering, in places leaving you thinking OMG due to this chapter being left on the last sentence of “so this how my life ends”, it comes across more like a BBC drama finale line when you re-read it.

Most would be led to believe that once the crash happens, we fast forward 6 months and Hammond explains the recovery, but no this wouldn't make good publishing would it? To make it even more honest and emotional they bring in the lady that stuck beside an ICU bedside etc for more than 5 weeks. The lady that RH believes to be his “best-friend and soul mate”, quite a chick flick line but I suppose that’s love. Mindy H first hears of her husband’s shunt when in the process of riding her beloved horse, perhaps it is that makes it even more heart breaking. For the remainder of the book, MH takes the lead in the writing, her writing is much more fluent and less logical which makes it far easier to follow due to its flow. It is in these parts that we learn some real touching things; from the TV we could get the impression that Clarkson is just a bombastic, right wing, petrol head but it is in this book how we learn that like MH he spent quite a lot of time alongside this poorly friend, even to this day saying “it was hard to see him like that”. We learn that he sent amusing text messages to Mindy to keep her spirits up whilst RH was in ICU, also that on one evening he sat waiting for RH to awake from a medical induced coma to allow MH to catch some winks due to being awake for so long. In the same way we learn that the executive producer Willman was also supportive in some parts of the way shedding tears. Shocking really isn’t it? It’s true what they say about the camera sometimes being misleading.

So to sum it up, i am biased due to believing that Hammond is drop dead gorgeous and being quite upset during the initial days of RH’s hospital time, to be professional. I will say two things, nobody could ever criticise Mindy and Richard for lack of honesty because sometimes the honesty becomes too much due to being so realistic, unlike some celebrity autobiographies the lows are hidden with lots of positives but this doesn’t it bears the truths to captivate hearts and minds alike. However one area of critique which I have mentioned before, is RH’s logical writing style which was evident in the shunt chapter, this area of the book felt more like a report of the event than the chapter of the book, also appearing to bear lots of similarities with the interview he did in January 2007 with Top Gear magazine. Nevertheless fans alike will evidently see a man who is just family orientated, spending lots of recovery period worrying about his daughters who at the time were very young. Unfortunately haters of the presenter will obviously say it is just him making some money out of an unfortunate event that happened, but if they were to just pick up this book and read just Mindy’s chapters they would realise that essentially this is making a topic that is quite literally unspoken aware of, more spoken about and raising money for the charities that do help families who have to deal with this.

Go and pick it up from your charity shop or the new shelf in WHSMITH titled 'The Top Gear shelf'.