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Jeremy Clarkson

Top Gear pundit and motoring journalist hails from Burghwallis, north of Doncaster.

Clarkson was born in Doncaster to travelling salesman Edward Grenville Clarkson and teacher Shirley Gabrielle Ward. His parents, who ran a business selling tea cosies, put their son's name down in advance for a number of private schools with no idea how they were going to pay the fees, until at the last moment, when he was 13, they made two Paddington Bear stuffed toys for each of their children.

They proved so popular that they started selling them through the business with sufficient success to be able to pay the fees for Clarkson to attend Hill House School, Doncaster and later Repton School in Derbyshire.

They became the official licensed sellers of Paddington Bears, and were based for a long time, in an old converted farm house at Red House Interchange. This became Clarkson's first job - assisting his father as a travelling salesman for his parents' burgeoning Paddington Bear toys.

His mother said in an interview "Jeremy used to get kisses from the girls in return for Paddington Bears."

According to Clarkson's autobiography he was expelled from Repton School for "drinking, smoking and generally making a nuisance of himself."

He trained as a journalist with the Rotherham Advertiser before moving to other papers and has been a long time columnist for the Sunday Times, as well as writing several top-selling books.

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