He's the outspoken Top Gear legend who has now made four series of his hit Amazon Prime Video show, Clarkson's Farm. But none of it may have been possible without a little stuffed bear created by Jeremy Clarkson's mum Shirley, which made the family so rich it helped launch Jeremy to stardom.

Shirley and Eddie Clarkson, Jeremy's parents, started a business in the 1970s, making unofficial Paddington Bear teddies. The bear was an immediate hit and Clarkson's parents started flogging them in local shops. But Paddington bear author Michael Bond caught wind of the money being made - without copyright approval - and launched legal action.

Bond then met the Clarkson family and they struck a deal which allowed them to keep selling the teddy bears as official products.

Michael told the Sunday Times: "I got in the lift with Shirley and Eddie.

"They were terribly nice and pretended it had all been a mistake - and we were friends by the time we got out of the lift. I gave them a licence."

Shirley Clarkson told AutoTrader how Jeremy would not have had his star TV career without Paddington Bear.

Clarkson was then sent to fee-paying private schools, Hill House School in Doncaster and Repton School in Derbyshire.

The Paddington Bear website says: "The very first Paddington bear soft toy was designed in the UK by a lady called Shirley Clarkson. She made it as a Christmas present for her children, Joanna and (who was to go on to become a world famous motoring journalist).

"So many people admired Shirley's Paddington that she started to make some more until her company, Gabrielle Designs and was granted an official licence to sell them in the UK in 1972."

As we know, Jeremy then trained as a journalist and his first job was as a local news reporter for the Rotherham Advertiser, as he mentioned on the recent series of Clarkson's Farm.

He moved to Top Gear magazine and started filming bits for the previous Top Gear programme on the in the 1990s before creating the 2001 reboot alongside James May and Richard Hammond and long-time producer friend Andy Wilman and script writer Richard Porter.

After several years of The Grand Tour with his Top Gear co-stars, his new venture Clarkson's Farm has just finished its fourth season alongside new faces Kaleb Cooper and Gerald, and Jeremy's net worth is said to be around £55million.