Jeremy Clarkson says he was bullied at public school: 'I was made to lick the lavatories clean and boys defecated in my tuck box'

Clarkson recounted the bullying in his column reviewing a new Range Rover

Jeremy Clarkson has shared stories about the bullying he underwent at private school (Splash)

Jeremy Clarkson has opened up about the bullying he suffered at boarding school, describing how he was “made to lick the lavatories clean” and suffered “all the usual humiliations that public school used back then to turn a small boy into a gibbering, sobbing, suicidal wreck”.

Clarkson made the admission in his Sunday Times column before reviewing the latest Range Rover.

He shared the stories of his bullying to demonstrate that despite the difficulties and the wilful breaking of his possessions by older boys at the school, he made sure that his prize Omega Genève Dynamic watch, presented to him by his father before he started at the school, was always safe and never broken.

“As the years dragged by I suffered many terrible things,” he wrote. “I was thrown on an hourly basis into the icy plunge pool, dragged from my bed in the middle of the night and beaten, make to lick the lavatories clean and all the usual humiliations that public school used back then to turn a small boy into a gibbering, sobbing, suicidal wreck.

He continued: “In the first two years the older boys broke pretty much everything I owned. They glued my records together, snapped my compass, ate my biscuits, defecated in my tuck box and cut my trousers in half with a pair of garden shears, but I made sure when I heard them coming that my watch was safely locked away.”

The former Top Gear presenter said he still owns the watch, and sometimes takes it out to “wind it up and remind myself that no matter how awful life might be, it was, from 1973 to 1975, one hell of a lot worse”.

Clarkson has openly spoken about troubling personal matters in the newspaper before. Two months ago he told The Sunday Times had been in the middle of a cancer scare two days before the infamous ‘fracas’ happened that cost him his job as the Top Gear frontman.

He said his doctor had told him a lump on his tongue was likely cancer and that it should be checked out “immediately,” but Clarkson declined this as “Top Gear always came first”.

“It was beyond belief stressful,” he said.