This Is Your Life: Damon Hill

Damon HILL OBE (1960-)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Damon Hill, racing driver, was surprised by Michael Aspel - with the help of commentator Murray Walker - during a charity cheque presentation for the Downs Syndrome Association at the Landmark Hotel in London.

Damon, the son of Formula One World Champion Graham Hill, made his Grand Prix debut at the relatively late age of 31. Earlier in life, he worked in construction, raced motorbikes and played guitar in a punk rock band. His big break in motor racing came in 1991 as a test driver for the Williams team, and he secured the first of his 22 victories at the 1993 Hungarian Grand Prix.

Damon became Formula One World Champion in 1996 with eight wins but was dropped by Williams the following season. He went on to drive with the Jordan team, achieving their first win at the Belgian Grand Prix in 1998.

"Gosh - what can I say? I've been had!"

programme details...

Edition No: 1018
Subject No: 993
Broadcast date: Mon 11 Jan 1999
Broadcast time: 7.00-7.30pm
Recorded: Sat 19 Dec 1998
Venue: unknown
Series: 39
Edition: 19
Code name: Dale

on the guest list...

Bette - mother
Brigitte - sister
Samantha - sister
Eddie Jordan
The Earl of March
Jim Rosenthal
Georgie - wife
Murray Walker
Barry Sheene
Basil Flashman
Robert Sutton
Bob Towler
Mike Agostini
Leo Sayer
Perry McCarthy
Martin Donnelly
Mark Blundell
Johnny Herbert
Jackie Stewart
William Taylor
Adrian Newey
Tim Preston
Les Jones
Matthew White
Paul West
Oliver - son
Joshua - son
Tabitha - daughter
Rosie - daughter
George Harrison
Mick Hucknall
Nigel Mansell
David Coulthard
Mika Hakkinen
Frank Williams

production team...

Researcher: Jo Grant
Writer: Joe Steeples
Directors: Chris Fox, Steve Docherty
Associate Producer: Helen Gordon-Smith
Executive Producer: John Longley
Series Producer: Jack Crawshaw
Producer: Sue Green

names above in bold indicate subjects of This Is Your Life

related pages...

Life at Full Throttle

the lovers of speed

Family Life

keeping it in the family

Screenshots of Damon Hill This Is Your Life

Damon Hill recalls his experience of This Is Your Life in his autobiography, Watching the Wheels...

Although I hadn't advertised the fact, I had decided 1999 was to be my last season. Eddie knew my contract was up at the end of the year and so we would be back into the game-playing pretty soon. But you know it's nearly time to move on when you start getting plaudits. When I first got the Williams drive, I had been asked to go on Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, but it was way too soon for something like that. Then I received another BBC Sports Personality of the Year award and an OBE in 1996 - but now I was about to get completely stitched up.

I had been invited to a Down's Syndrome Association event at the Landmark Hotel, Marylebone. I was about to go into one of my amusing speeches when Murray Walker appeared from one corner to distract me and Michael Aspel materialised on the other side to surprise me as the subject of This Is Your Life. It was a totally surreal experience. They had my prep school headmaster, Mr Basil Flashman, who was charming and amusing and told a story of how, when asked by another boy, 'Hill, what does your father do?' I replied, 'He drives cars. He's a sort of chauffeur.' Barry Sheene flew all the way from Australia to tell his story of how I was too nice and should give the press more of a kicking. I reminded him that he had got me into enough trouble already! They showed the very amusing Pizza Hut commercial I had made with Murray when he went ballistic and I grabbed him by the throat. All my friends and colleagues were there. Schumacher couldn't make it, but Eddie was there, as were the Earl of March, whom I had got to know when I raced a Manx Norton against Barry Sheene at the newly created Goodwood revival the previous September, and the 'Rat Pack': Donnelly, Herbert, McCarthy and Blundell. They even had a clip showing me and my sisters appearing on my father's This Is Your Life in 1971, all of which was excruciatingly embarrassing. Robert Sutton cleared up the story about my punk years and Leo Sayer and Mick Hucknall added a few nuggets, while Nigel Mansell publicly thanked me for helping him become World Champion in 1992. Sir Jackie Stewart said I had honoured my father and my family; even Mika and David were beamed in to say nice things. It was all quite overwhelming. Frank also paid me a very touching compliment by admitting that he had initially had misgivings about me but now felt he had had no right to have felt that way. He was particularly impressed by the way I had recovered from the disaster of 1995 to come back, fitter and stronger than ever, to win in 1996. I thought that was very generous of him. To follow that, they brought on my entire team of mechanics: Les Jones, Paul West, Matthew White, my engineer Tim Preston, and even Adrian Newey. It is very odd meeting everyone in an unnatural environment like that as they shuffle on, say a few kind words and shuffle off again. Then they brought on my whole family, complete with our newest addition, Rosie. The last guest was George Harrison: easily the most famous person in the room. Having been recently diagnosed with throat cancer, George had bravely made the trip from Henley-upon-Thames. He kept it simple and said I was a nice lad and came from a nice family, which my parents had a lot to do with; my driving was good and my guitaring was 'coming along', which was stretching the truth a bit, to be honest.

The Independent 17 January 1999

Sport on tv: Too much Hill's angel, too little devilish Damon

Greg Wood

As a rule, the only way to stay reasonably sane while watching This Is Your Life (BBC1) is to imagine how it would be if they invited the people who really know the subject. "Do you remember this voice?" Michael Aspel would ask. "You should. He was your best friend at school, but you haven't seen him since you ran off with his wife four years ago. Since then he's hit the bottle and lost his house, but tonight he's come all the way from his detox unit in Cornwall, just to administer the knee to the groin that you so richly deserve."

They could reasonably call it "This Is Your Beatification", were it not for the complete lack of a Devil's Advocate, and the possibility that after 30-odd years of the big red book, heaven itself must be running out of places to put them all. Yet this week, just for once, it felt as if the long stream of tribute-payers might be telling it as it is. Damon Hill does seem to be, as Murray Walker put it, "a really super bloke".

This did not, admittedly, make for significantly better television than the average edition of This Is Your Life, although the revelation that he used to sing in a punk band called the Hormones under the nom-de-gob of Gene Steroid was worth hearing. But it did offer an interesting commentary on the nature of modern sporting celebrity, since as any tap-room philosopher worth his pint will assure you, Damon is as dull as they come.

When people claim that the last Sports Personality of the Year who actually had a personality was Paul Gascoigne, it is Hill - along, perhaps, with Jonathan Edwards - they are thinking about. But what they really mean is that unless someone gets drunk and into trouble on a weekly basis, or cheats on or thumps his wife, or spends his loot as conspicuously as Ivana Trump, they are somehow failing in their duties as a modern sportsman.

Damon does not do any of those things, nor does he get shirty with reporters, or forget about those who helped him on his way to the top. One of the guests on Monday was a young man who, as a 17-year-old, used to go to Silverstone simply to watch Hill practise, and waved a little flag every time his hero came past. Hill not only noticed him, but "thought he deserved an award", and arranged for him to travel to Suzuka for the title-clinching race in 1996. And this in an era when many footballers seem to think that being asked for an autograph is a shocking imposition. Hill is also, as his win at the Belgian Grand Prix in Spa last year proved, a far better driver than anyone gave him credit for, even in his championship season. And yet if you asked 100 average fathers whether they would prefer their sons to grow up to be Damon Hill or David Beckham, a majority would probably plump for Beckham. Or rather, they would have done a week ago.

Series 39 subjects