In the original dustsheet. Black cloth binding with silver title on the spine.

• F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

•                   Surviving mental illness

The real value of this book is that it lets people know that this is part of the human experience, even though it’s not something you see on TV or in celeb magazines. There isn’t much that can be said that hasn’t been said already. The pre-accident biography is pretty much what you’d expect of somebody who got the job on the most petrol-headed show on network television. The story of the accident and its aftermath is a moving story; many of the key moments were played out in public (we remember the crash, the visits to the hospital, and Hammond’s first reappearance on Top Gear), but arresting as those moments were, they have less to say to people than the descriptions of how a family came to terms with such an abrupt change, and gradually helped put Richard’s mind back together again.

… and yet a big proportion of the population will suffer from Alzheimer’s, strokes, depression, nervous breakdown, schizophrenia, the sort of accident that Richard Hammond had, and a range of other ailments at some time in their lives. Almost everybody is likely to be affected by some form of mental damage at some stage in their life. But how to cope with it? What do you say to families who are so affected? How do you react to somebody who tells you the same thing for the sixth time in ten minutes, or does something that makes you want to be somewhere else, even though they are your own relative …. Such is the taboo, there are few clues to be found, though Oliver Sacks’ books might be another reference point, or if you want something more accessible, J.K.Rowling’s description of Neville Longbottom’s parents in “Order of the Phoenix”.

Strongly recommended. I had hoped that it would be suitable for my 10 year old son, who greatly admires all of the Top Gear team: however, the language is occasionally a little strong.

Richard Mark Hammond (born 19 December 1969) is an English journalist, television presenter, mechanic and writer. He is best known for co-hosting the BBC Two motoring programme Top Gear from 2002 until 2015 with Jeremy Clarkson and James May. Since 2016, the trio have presented Amazon Studios’ The Grand Tour.

Hammond has also notably presented entertainment documentary series Brainiac: Science Abuse (2003–2008), the game show Total Wipeout (2009–2012) and nature documentary series Planet Earth Live (2012). In 2016, again with Clarkson and May, Hammond launched the automotive social media website DriveTribe, where he regularly provides content on his tribe “Hammond’s Fob Jockeys”.