The Top Gear Story Read Online Free PDF

and generally making a nuisance’ of himself. He was allowed back to take his exams but according to his mother, he didn’t pass any (at the time he told her that it didn’t matter as he was going to be a TV presenter). The current school website makes no mention of his expulsion.
    Nonetheless, his public-school days were formative. With such an esteemed academic background – even allowing for his expulsion – it was not surprising that once unleashed into the outside world, Clarkson made rapid progress as an ambitious young man, despite having no A-levels. Clearly, there was aspiration in his genes – obviously his parents’ own success proved that, but so too did the recently unearthed entrepreneurial ways of his more distant ancestors.
    In a 2004 episode of the BBC’s genealogical programme Who Do You Think You Are ? Clarkson discovered that his great- great-great -grandfatherJohn Kilner had invented a famous rubber-sealed jar for preserved fruit which became an industry standard and was subsequently named after him. He started work in a glass factory and later set up his own glassworks with friends, which ultimately grew into a huge business. By the 1840s, he owned two colossal factories in south Yorkshire and was posthumously granted the only medal awarded to a British glassmaker at the Great International Exhibition held in London, in 1862.
    There was a genuine family mystery discovered on the programme too. When John’s son Caleb died, he left millions of pounds to his son George and a son-in-law in his will. However, further probate records show the two died with very little money. So, where had it all gone? One local legend suggested the son-in -law liked technology and in 1901, was said to have become one of the first people in south Yorkshire to buy a motorcar.
    When asked to go on the historical show, Clarkson admits to thinking it was ‘too boring to bother with’. However, on hearing all of his fascinating personal history, he says that he wanted to know what had happened to the money from this trademarked invention and secretly hoped the programme’s experts might stumble across a piece of paper stating, ‘Jeremy Clarkson is owed £48 billion’.
    Fast forward to the 1970s and Clarkson’s first job within the media was on the Rotherham Advertiser , but his fierce creative and linguistic streak quickly found the confines of local news media too claustrophobic. According to a later appearance on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs , it was ‘in the middle of an assignment to a vegetable and produce show’ that he handed in his notice. He would also work at the Rochdale Observer and later the Wolverhampton Express & Star but his sights were firmly set on something far bigger: television.
    For now, he turned his back on journalism and went to work selling Paddington Bears in his father’s business. Despite this, he realised he’d caught the reporting bug and it wasn’t long before he returned to the journalistic arena. It was during those formative newspaper years that Clarkson had the idea to pen motoring columns and subsequently syndicate them to other local papers so in 1983 he moved to London and started his own business (with a partner) called the Motoring Press Agency (MPA). Nicholas Rufford, editor of The Sunday Times’ InGear magazine, told the broadsheet that this intensive journalistic background explains Clarkson’s meticulous approach to writing: ‘He is an old-school journalist who learnt his craft the hard way. He delivers copy on time, word perfect, and can produce stories very quickly, even on a train. His headed notepaper says, “Jeremy Clarkson, journalist” – that’s how he sees himself.’
    The MPA led directly to Clarkson writing extensively for Performance magazine and his articles consistently proved both popular with the readers and elegantly written. As Jon Bentley has pointed out, it was while on a launch for the Citroen AX researching a piece for his MPA business