Jeremy Clarkson raced to hospital for emergency surgery

The former Top Gear host has revealed he underwent a heart procedure after experiencing a “sudden deterioration” in his health.

Mr Clarkson, who currently presents Clarkson’s Farm on Prime Video, spoke in his column in The Sunday Times about what he called the “wearisome effects of growing old”.

The 64-year-old detailed how a swim while on holiday in the Indian Ocean appeared to cause him difficulties using the stairs, which when he returned home meant a “sudden deterioration began to gather pace”.

Jeremy Clarkson has opened up about the surgery. (Image: Prime Video)

He says he had symptoms of being “clammy”, with a “tightness in my chest”, and “pins and needles in my left arm”, and after hearing the news of former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond’s fatal heart attack, he decided to go to see his doctor.

Mr Clarkson says he went to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford via an ambulance, where a heart attack was ruled out after he had an electrocardiogram (ECG), blood tests and X-rays.

He said he then went to an “operating theatre”, after further checks, and doctors said he was perhaps “days away” from getting very ill.

Mr Clarkson said: “It seems that of the arteries feeding my heart with nourishing blood, one was completely blocked and the second of three was heading that way.”

He said a stent, which can save lives and stop future heart attacks through improving blood flow to the heart, was fitted in around two hours.

Jeremy Clarkson at his farm in Oxfordshire. (Image: PA / Prime Video)

The motoring journalist said: “It wasn’t especially painful. Just odd,” and added that he has been thinking: “Crikey, that was close.”

Mr Clarkson said he was “wondering what water tastes like and if it’s possible to make celery interesting” following the health scare, as he seemed to consider lessening his meat intake.

He has previously revealed he had to quit smoking after contracting pneumonia on holiday in Spain.

"Now, thanks to all those tremendous people at the John Radcliffe in Oxford and all of their extraordinary machines, here I am wondering what water tastes like and if it’s possible to make celery interesting," he concluded.

"Because I’m going to try to prove that ageing doesn’t have to be gradual, then sudden.

"It can be gradual and then gradual some more."

Last month Mr Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May left their show The Grand Tour behind on Prime Video.

Mr Clarkson has continued to present Clarkson’s Farm, which covers him running his Oxfordshire farm, on Prime Video, as well as Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? on ITV.

He recently opened a pub, called The Farmer’s Dog, in Asthall, near Burford, close to where he lives near Chipping Norton.