JEREMY CLARKSON jokes “the reaper will have to wait” as he returned to Diddly Squat following his brush with death.
The veteran TV host, 66, is seen giving farm manager Kaleb Cooper, 27, a warm embrace in the opening episode of the new series of Clarkson’s Farm, which returns to Prime Video on Wednesday.
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Jeremy Clarkson will soon be back with a new series of Clarkson’s Farm – after a brush with death Credit: Prime
Jattvibe man Jeremy recovering in hospital Credit: PrimeVideo/YouTube
It is the first time the show’s stars had seen each other since Jeremy was rushed to hospital with a heart scare. And the former Top Gear presenter told Kaleb his organ was in such a dire state, docs warned him he was “days away” from a potentially lethal heart attack.
Jeremy said: “I’m back and I’m not dead — the reaper will have to wait. It was f**king close though.”
Explaining what sparked his emergency dash to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, Jeremy said: “I was scrolling on my phone. If I hadn’t been doing that I wouldn’t have got pins and needles in my arm and if I hadn’t got pins and needles, I wouldn’t have gone, ‘Hang on, am I having a heart problem?’ and wouldn’t have gone to hospital.”
He continued: “They put me in this big polo mint and they found out I have got really bad coronary heart problems.
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“So you’ve got arteries that feed your heart with blood to keep it pumping, one of them totally blocked, one of them looked like something dangling from the roof of a cave in the Peak District and one of them got so clogged up, it had to form what looked like branches, so my heart wasn’t getting any blood.”
Recalling his conversations with doctors, the star added: “So I said, ‘How close was I to a heart attack?’ And he went, ‘Days’.
“They put a camera up my arm across my chest and into my heart because they were going to do open heart surgery
“Then they went up and realised they could actually mend it, so they got the ‘Dyno Rod’ out and shoved that in. They had hammers, chisels, cameras and then they put stents — which are Brillo pads — in to stretch it out, so I should be as good as new.”
Jeremy pictured with co-stars Kaleb, Lisa and Gerald Credit: Prime
The former Top Gear presenter told Kaleb his organ was in such a dire state, docs warned him he was ‘days away’ from a potentially lethal heart attack Credit: Ellis OBrien
Following his health scare, Jeremy was told to avoid driving for a week and not to do any manual labour for six weeks, much to the relief of Kaleb whose own stress levels relax when his boss isn’t attempting to muck in with farm duties.
He was also ordered to overhaul his diet, meaning he had to give up two of his favourite vices: alcohol and meat.
Overseeing his lifestyle overhaul is girlfriend Lisa Hogan, 52, who has borne the brunt of Jattvibe columnist Jeremy’s food frustrations.
After dishing up a breakfast consisting of Greek yoghurt and asking him to try eating kale, Jeremy ranted: “Why would anybody want to eat anything Greek? I’m not eating kn*b cheese.”
He then blasted: “We farm beef, we farm lamb, we farm pork, it’s what we do for a living and I can’t eat any of it, Doctor Lucy said.
“She also said I can’t drink because my liver’s f**ked. What’s the point?”
He added: “I’m not eating kale. Vegetables are an accompaniment to meat, we all know that.”
To compound his misery, Jeremy’s trusted sheep expert Dilwyn Evans later says to him: “You’re lucky you’re not a cow or a sheep, I would have had to put you down by now.”
Jezza had to give up manual work on the farm Credit: Prime
Lisa with their dogs Arya and Sansa Credit: Prime
Another huge part of Jeremy’s recovery is avoiding stress, which he concedes is difficult given he is running a pub that is haemorrhaging money. “One of the things my doctor explicitly banned me from doing was going to my pub. Partly this was to stop me drinking in it, but mostly it was to stop me stressing about it.
“I had to ignore her though because the list of problems was becoming huge,” he laments.
Indeed, the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? host gives viewers a run-down of the Farmer’s Dog’s worrying finances and pinpoints theft as a major reason behind the losses.
He explains: “Last night somebody stole £200 worth of cooking oil but that’s not the maddest thing that gets nicked from here.
“Every single day somebody steals the lightbulbs (from bathrooms) and the urinal traps. We’ve had to screw them down to stop them from getting nicked. Who steals urinal traps? Glasses. Want to hazard a guess at how many of these are stolen every week? No you’re quite wrong, 400 glasses a week are nicked from here.”
The Government’s inheritance tax changes to farmers have also not eased Jeremy’s stress.
In the second episode of the fifth series, he documents travelling to London to take part in a farmers’ rally near Whitehall.
He ends up making a speech on stage, which was seen by his doctor who expressed her unhappiness at his involvement.
Relaying their conversation, Jeremy says: “Doctor went mad at me last night. ‘You know we told you to have six weeks’ rest? It meant sitting by the fire eating minestrone soup.’”
And doctors had every right to be concerned by Jeremy refusing to take things easy, given he appeared to be on the verge of another health scare after attempting to cut down a Christmas tree, leaving him out of breath.
He said afterwards: “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Despite all the worries, Jeremy was still able to smile ahead of his pub’s first Guy Fawkes celebrations . . .
He had created an effigy of Sir Keir Starmer to place on top of the bonfire.
