Jeremy Clarkson was left a “suicidal wreck” after a horrific bullying ordeal when he was still a child. The Clarkson’s Farm star was sent to board at the £9,000-per-term Repton School in Derbyshire, where he famously got a C and two Us in his A-level exams before making a name for himself on BBC car show Top Gear.

Clarkson’s school days were marred with terror. Despite meeting his future friend and colleague Andy Wilman – producer of shows including The Grand Tour and Top Gear – at school, he was subjected to “many terrible things” while staying away from home in a boys’ dormitory.

He admitted: “I was thrown on an hourly basis into the ice plunge pool, dragged from my bed in the middle of the night and beaten, made 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.

“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 they cut my trousers in half with a pair of garden shears."

Jeremy got nine O-levels at school, but was expelled for drinking and smoking at local pubs before he could finish.

But on the Andy Jaye podcast, Jeremy said the experience “brought me to my senses”.

He said: “I appreciate that for many, many, many people bullying is horrific, but it just wasn't for me particularly.

If you have been affected by this story, you can contact the Samaritans, call 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org or visit https://www.samaritans.org/