On The Edge: My Story by Richard Hammond

Author:Richard Hammond [Hammond, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Published: 2009-03-12T06:00:00+00:00

Alex, one of the Top Gear researchers, had arrived upstairs with Andy Wilman. I came out into the corridor to talk to them.

‘Alex is going to be your personal slave,’ Andy said with a grin.

Alex was smiling too.

‘Whatever you want, whatever you need, it’s Alex’s job to get it for you.’

I looked from Alex to Andy and back again.

‘I can’t do that.’

‘No, you can,’ insisted Andy. ‘He’s got nothing to do now Top Gear’s stalled. He needs a job, and you’re it.’

‘Anything you want,’ Alex agreed, smiling.

‘Great.’ I grinned. ‘Pants.’

They both raised their eyebrows and laughed. But it was true. I desperately needed more knickers! In the rush to pack, I’d put stuff in the suitcase for Richard but only minimal bits for me. Actually, poor Alex was sent out with quite a list: knickers, bras, T-shirts, a pair of jeans, socks, shower gel and shampoo. He also had to buy Richard some clothes, as they’d gone walkabout at the airfield, apart from his cowboy boots which I’d moved with us from intensive care.

Alex stood there with a pen and pad as we went through a list of items and sizes. Poor Alex - he’d joined Top Gear as a researcher to work on exciting and glamorous film shoots, and wound up buying underwear in a posh pants shop for the presenter’s wife! Alex is a great bloke. He’s in his twenties and has been working on Top Gear for a while. I’d spoken to him innumerable times on the phone about shoots and filming issues, but this was the first time we’d met, and here he was writing down my vital statistics.

We huddled together in a side doorway to avoid causing any disruption. The corridor along the side of the ward was a busy thoroughfare. There were always two or three nurses seated behind the desk at the middle section which faced the doors into the main ward. The traffic along the corridor was constant. Beds being pushed to and fro; orderlies and doctors; patients and visitors; nurses, sometimes walking and joking, sometimes running to answer an emergency call, but always busy. The doorway where we stood extended back a few feet and was the entrance to two storage cupboards. We shared it with three wheelchairs and some stacking plastic seats. As we talked, I saw her for the first time. A dear, sweet, elderly woman with a dreadful gash in the top of her head held together with some particularly serious-looking staples. The wound was about three and a half inches long. It looked as though someone had drawn a thick black-red curve across her head through the downy white hair. The enormous staples looked reminiscent of a macabre horror story. I don’t know what happened to her, but clearly it was a nasty injury, and it was so sad watching her shuffle up and down with the aid of a nurse; slightly hunched over, her left arm outstretched and index finger and thumb rubbing together. All the while calling gently, ‘Puss, puss.

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