One of the many qualities of Clarkson’s Farm, the television show which, over five series, has documented the quest of unreconstructed petrolhead Jeremy Clarkson to run a working farm in the Cotswolds, is its unvarnished depiction of the realities of agricultural life: the pleasures and the pain, the fulfilment and the frustration, the matters of life and of death. This is reality TV at its very best. And just when we thought it couldn’t get any more real…
In the penultimate episode of series five, Clarkson is having a discussion about the harvest timetable with his senior colleagues, Charlie Ireland, agronomy consultant, and Kaleb Cooper, farm manager. And what starts as a simple matter of scheduling – “I think it’s very clear,” says Ireland. “Oats next week. I think the wheats will be ready probably the week after.” – takes a dramatic turn when Clarkson leans back on his chair, glasses on head, arms behind his head, and announces: “I’ve got cancer”.
“No,” responds an incredulous Cooper, wiping his eyes. Clarkson explains, almost in passing, that his cancer is “aggressive, but it’s really early”, and that treatment falls “slap bang” in the middle of harvest. It will mean that he’ll be “slightly out of action”. After a short exchange on the farming practicalities, Clarkson sighs: “Pisser though, isn’t it.”
And with that, it was straight on to testing his cows for TB. It is only in the following episode that we learn he has prostate cancer, and he has had an operation to remove 10 per cent of it – “the bit where the cancer is,” he informs Cooper. The episode, and series, concludes with Clarkson, prone in a hospital bed, telling us that “the treatment has gone a bit awry, let’s say, so I’m going to be here for a little while”.
With trademark Clarksonian drollery, he signs off by addressing the camera: “If this is all successful, I’ll see you all for season six. And if it isn’t, I won’t”. With a resigned chuckle, he waves to us and says: “Take care, everyone”. Cue the title sequence, and, to the accompaniment of Eric Idle singing “Always Look on The Bright Side of Life” – this viewer’s emotions were left shredded.
I have known Clarkson for almost three decades. I was sitting next to Piers Morgan on Concorde’s final flight in 2003 when Clarkson threw a glass of water over him, I witnessed the playground fisticuffs between the two at the Press Awards a year later, and, around that time, I reversed into Clarkson’s £200,000 Ford GT7 while waving goodbye to him after dinner at his house (he forgave, but never forgot, my hapless driving).
And while we inhabit polar opposite points on the political spectrum, I have never questioned his conviction, undervalued his journalistic gift or doubted his ability to mobilise opinion, most notably by bringing the existential struggles of British farmers to public attention. Also, his honesty. I have envied his asbestos quality, his gleeful indiscretions, appearing not to give a toss what people think of him. He has written frankly about his weight, his drinking, his medical issues (he was “days away” from a potentially fatal heart attack in 2024), and this strand of openness has its apotheosis in the matter-of-fact announcement of his prostate cancer diagnosis, which gets less air time than the euthanising of a sickly calf.
Thus, the man who made a career out of upsetting people with his laddish behaviour and studied un-PC attitudes may turn out to be a public servant of heroic dimensions. The blokey gags he made on Top Gear about needing to go for a wee all the time led to a Sunday Times column in which he wrote that he’s “had too many friends go down with prostate cancer”, and that catching it early just takes “a moment or two of being a bit cross-eyed” during the examination.
More than 12,000 men a year die of prostate cancer in the UK. It remains the most common cancer without a national screening programme. For the vast majority of men, screening for prostate cancer is still elective, and establishing a diagnosis early is vital, possibly life-saving, in many cases.
Notwithstanding government pressure, the UK’s National Screening Committee have decreed that a UK-wide programme of prostate screening for all men over a certain age might lead to unnecessary, and dangerous, surgeries, and only those with a genetic propensity to the disease get checked. It is grimly ironic that this may be portrayed as precisely the sort of bureaucratic risk-aversion that Clarkson rails against as a farmer.
In any case, the most effective prophylactic measure is for men not to be bashful about getting themselves checked out. That Clarkson chose to go public with his cancer will do more for voluntary prostate screening than any amount of NHS advisories, or public health announcements.
I sent Clarkson a text message yesterday wishing him much fortitude in his forthcoming battle. And if bloody-minded cussedness, old-fashioned Yorkshire grit and humour in the face of adversity count for anything in a situation like his, we’ll definitely be seeing him in series six.
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