[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAb4-YEY8N0]
By Lauren Crooks
A NEWLYWED couple got a nice surprise when a celebrity guest gatecrashed their wedding – Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson.
The loudmouth presenter turned up at Mark and Angela McCole’s reception in Edinburgh’s plush Balmoral Hotel after filming a race from London for the new series.
Clarkson, covered in soot and dressed in a blue boiler suit, congratulated the happy couple and posed for pictures with them and co-presenter James May as fans crowded round the hotel steps.
And cheeky Clarkson even tried to give the groom style tips – telling him to ‘lose the beard’.
The couple say their unexpected guests were the “icing on the cake” of their day.
Angela, 29, said: “The last person I expected to see on my wedding day was Jeremy Clarkson. We spotted him and James May as we were making our grand entrance and it caused quite a stir.”
Clarkson and May arrived in Edinburgh after a three-way race between a steam engine, a 1940s Jaguar and 1957 Vincent motorbike, which broke down with Richard Hammond on board before he reached the city.
Angela said: “Jeremy Clarkson had been on a steam train, which was why he was in a boiler suit and had a black face.
“James May had travelled up in a classic car and Richard Hammond had broken down somewhere.
“They were having a few beers in the Balmoral and joined us for a few photos – it was really bizarre.”
Angela, a GP, met her pathologist husband while they studied together at Edinburgh University’s medical school in the late 1990s.
They both went onto work in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, before they moved to Oxfordshire.
The pair had just posed for pictures in Princes Street Gardens following the ceremony at Edinburgh’s Church of the Sacred Heart on April 25.
But they didn’t mind Clarkson and May stealing their limelight for five minutes on their arrival.
Angela said: “They were really nice and chatty and we had a laugh.
“Jeremy Clarkson told my husband to ‘lose the beard’. It was the icing on the cake, my husband even managed to mention it in his speech.”
Footage of the meeting has turned the McCole’s into internet sensations – racking up almost 3,000 hits on You Tube.
It is not known if they will feature in the final cut of the episode, but the couple hope they will be part of the studio audience when it is filmed.
The new series of Top Gear starts on BBC2 on 21 June.
