Talk:Monty Don

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Who Do You Think You Are?

The episode of Who Do You Think You Are? about Monty Don that aired last night showed very poor research and also missed a trick. At the end of the programme it said that John Mitchell Keiller (1851-1899)'s 9 year old son never took an interest in the company. This is incorrect. The 9 year old son was Alexander Keiller (1889-1955), and a recent biography of him (A Zest for Life: The Story of Alexander Keiller by Lynda J Murray, 1999) states:

"Towards the end of 1910, on his twenty-first birthday, Keiller came into his inheritance and became actively involved in the family business. Initially he declined the offer of becoming a Director, preferring to take a back seat and allow his [maternal] uncle, John Keiller Grieg, to represent him on at Board meetings. In 1911 Keiller allocated enough shares in the company to his uncle to allow him to become a Director as Keiller's representative. He also began to accumulate yet further shares for himself. In order to assist the company during a temporary cashflow difficulty he offered to buy up shares in one of the overseas branches at Tangermunde, near Berlin in Germany, thus increasing his stockholding. His involvement in the business increased marginally, with the occasional attendance of Annual Directors Board Meetings, which seemed to have been convened most often to award Directors salaries and bonuses. Quite often though, owing to these meetings being convened in the winter months, there was a letter of apology from Keiller at St Moritz, where he was obviously trying to escape the pressures of executive stress." (page 13)

"Keiller's association with the family business had not diminshed during the War Years, and another time of change for him was 1918. In March of that year, he elected to sell all of his shares in the company, including those inherited from his father, and also the 100 held by his uncle, John Keiller Grieg. These shares were bought up in the main by other Directors of the company, as well as outsiders. Thus his involvement with the family business ceased, and with the considerable fortune there accrued, he was free to do as he chose." (page 21)

Using the wealth from his inheritance, Keiller went on to buy and excavate both Windmill Hill near Avebury and the site of Avebury itself, now a World Heritage Site and one of the finest megalithic sites in Europe.

What poor research by the BBC and how they missed a trick - a section on Alexander Keiller would have been fascinating. 86.138.45.200 (talk) 09:41, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The book includes a family tree, which goes as far back as Janet Keiller, showing William Keiller, Monty Don's great grandfather, and William's older brother Alexander Riddoch Keiller, the father of John Mitchell Keiller and grandfather of Alexander Keiller. 86.138.45.200 (talk) 09:51, 10 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]