Richard Hammond

Richard on Saville row

Every event in my life was leading to this month. And, when it finally came, the culmination of all those events, it really bloody hurt and now I can't ride my new motorbike. Let me explain: I live in the countryside, where I get to play with my Land Rovers. A passion which can, through an early chain of events in my life, be traced back to Jimmy Saville. Though quite what chain of events led to his desire to host a TV show in which he grants other children's wishes, then refuses to grant the wish of Richard Hammond to drive a Land Rover, I have no idea. Nevertheless, he did, so I bought my own as soon as I could.

Some other stuff happened, marriage, kids, all that, but more recently, in order to fit in with the hearty country folk living around me, I have looked for things I could do to show that I am of the country set. Last year, a long and complex chain of events led to me riding with the Ledbury Hunt, when we made a Top Gear film about using a car to replace the fox in the now illegal pursuit of fox hunting. I rode a horse and discovered it to be pleasant. This was the thing I could pursue.

To this end, my wife Mindy and I decided to borrow a couple of horses and ride out with the chaps one weekend. So, in advance of the chosen day, we visited a local horse-bloke to try out a couple of nags. We went in Mindy's Land Rover - mine was out of tax, another seemingly inconsequential but ultimately critical event. Having arrived at the stableyard, I stuck her car keys in my pocket. This was because Mindy, having been influenced earlier in life to pursue horse riding, following another chain of events for which there is no time here, was properly attired in a close-fitting tweed hacking jacket, the sleek lines of which certainly wouldn't allow room for her Landie keys. Especially since the loss of a previous set had driven us to replace the key fob with a large, metal carabiner.

 "I live in the countryside, where I get to play with my Land Rovers. A passion which can be traced back to Jimmy Saville"

I have a particular fondness for these, having once been forced to prove myself on a climbing trip and, well, that's another chain, but one that flashed through my mind as I pocketed the hefty, metal clasp and the accompanying jumble of keys. My pocket could accommodate them because I wore a tweed jacket of a cheaper, more utilitarian variety, bought from a local farmers' store because I didn't think the posh ones suited me. It was vanity, triggered as a result of being quite short. A fact brought about by the genetic make-up of my parents who met at a youth club some 45 years ago.

We met the man, I got on the horse, and set off on a test drive. A bird rose up from the bushes. It was startled by something, perhaps a mouse, and perhaps this reaction resulted from some bad experience with one as a chick. Whatever, there will be a chain of events behind this seemingly inconsequential happening. The horse, for some reason, perhaps related to it having a mote of dust in its eye, or worrying about fire due to a disturbing incident in its foalhood, leaped about 60ft to the left. And I began to fall off. I say ‘began', because this did not feel like a fast accident, nor an especially dangerous one. I have, after all, had worse.

On landing, the pocket of my ill-fitting jacket - bought because God and his youth club made me vain - twisted round and allowed the Land Rover keys - Jimmy Saville's fault - to grind into the base of my spine and damage some complicated joint in my pelvis. I'm not going to go into the medical details, because I didn't really understand what they told me later in casualty. All I know is that it hurts like a bastard and I really do need the crutches they gave me.

Arriving home, the builders - now in permanent residence at our house, entirely the fault of the slack bastards who built it 600 years ago and forgot to nail it together properly - were standing around a Suzuki Hayabusa that had been delivered whilst I was out. Keen to inspect the bike that I knew I'd now not be riding for some weeks, I lowered myself from the car and leaned on my crutches. I needed them not just to keep the weight off my ruined pelvis, but to brace myself against the blast of laughter howling from the builders. They'd developed their sharply-tuned senses of humour over many years as a result of a long and complex chain of events for which I don't have time right now, but nevertheless, they clearly enjoyed the spectacle of a man reduced to a hobbling wreck thanks to Jimmy Saville, God and his youth clubs, a nervous bird and a horse with a bad past. I am cross and shall, henceforth, stick to cars.