Richard Mark Hammond born 19 December is an English journalist, television presenter, and author. Hammond has also presented entertainment documentary series Brainiac: Science Abuse β , the game show Total Wipeout β and nature documentary series Planet Earth Live In , along with Clarkson and May, Hammond launched the automotive social media website DriveTribe. Richard Mark Hammond [ 2 ] was born on 19 December , [ 3 ] [ 2 ] in Solihull , Warwickshire , [ 4 ] eldest of three sons [ citation needed ] of Alan and Eileen Hammond.
Originally a pupil of Solihull School , a fee-paying boys' independent school, he moved to Ripon Grammar School , and from to attended Harrogate College of Art and Technology. According to a episode of Top Gear Series 16, Episode 5 , Hammond's first job was shovelling grit into a water filtration plant.
Presenting the afternoon programme at Radio Lancashire , his regular guests included motoring journalist Zog Ziegler, who would review a car of the week by being interviewed by Hammond over the phone. The two became good friends, and it was Ziegler who encouraged Hammond to enter into motoring reviews on television. Hammond became a presenter on Top Gear in , when the show began in its revamped format.
He is sometimes referred to as "The Hamster" by fans and his co-presenters due to his name and relatively small stature compared to May and Clarkson. Following a high-speed dragster crash while filming in September near York, Hammond returned in the first episode of series 9 broadcast on 28 January to a hero's welcome, complete with dancing girls, aeroplane-style stairs and fireworks.
The show also contained images of the crash, which had made international headlines, with Hammond talking through the events of the day after which the audience broke into spontaneous applause. Hammond then requested that the crash never be mentioned on the show again, though all three Top Gear presenters have since referred to it in jokes during the news segment of the programme. He told his colleagues, "The only difference between me now and before the crash is that I like celery now and I didn't before".
