Jeremy Clarkson has revealed he had a harrowing phone call with Phillip Schofield when news of his affair broke. Even though the pair aren’t really pals, the Clarkson’s Farm star said he was ‘actually quite cross’ with the way Phil was treated in the wake of the scandal, so he called him up and they ended up having a long chat. Harrowingly describing 62-year-old Phil as a ‘broken man’ when they spoke last year, Clarkson said it was like he ‘could see no way back’ as his 35-year TV career seemed like it was finished.

But with news this week that Phil will be back on TV screens from Monday, Clarkson said he is ‘delighted’ he’s managed to get his life back on track. Phil will make his big TV return on Channel 5’s Cast Away , which will see him marooned on a tropical island off the coast of Madagascar and left to fend for himself for 10 days. During the three-part show, which airs consecutively until Wednesday night, he will talk about his ‘unwise, but not illegal’ affair, what really happened at This Morning behind the scenes and what he plans to do in the future.

Writing in his column for The Sun , 64-year-old Clarkson penned: “When Phillip Schofield announced on morning television that he was gay, everyone rallied round and said how brave he’d been. But when it turned out that he’d actually done gay stuff, he was sacked, cancelled, eviscerated and swept into the bucket of history marked ‘disgraced, ageing TV stars.’ "I was actually quite c.