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Monty Don

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Monty Don
OBE
Don in 2007
Born
Montagu Denis Wyatt Don

(1955-07-08) 8 July 1955 (age 69)
West Berlin
NationalityEnglish
CitizenshipUnited Kingdom
Alma materMagdalene College, Cambridge
Occupation(s)Television presenter, gardener, writer
Years active(1994–present)
TelevisionGardeners' World
Spouse(s)Sarah Don, née Erskine (1983–present)
Children2 sons, 1 daughter
WebsiteMontyDon.com

Montagu Denis Wyatt "Monty" Don OBE (born 8 July 1955)[1] is an English television presenter, writer and speaker on horticulture, best known for presenting the BBC television series Gardeners' World.

Early life and education

Monty Don was born in West Berlin to British parents Denis Thomas Keiller Don, a career soldier posted in Germany, and Janet Montagu (née Wyatt). Both of his paternal grandparents were Scottish, through whom he is descended from botanist George Don and the Keiller family of Dundee, inventors of a brand of marmalade in 1797.[2] On his maternal side, he is descended from the Wyatts, who were a prominent dynasty of architects.[2] Both parents died in the 1980s.[3] Don has a twin sister, an elder brother David, and two other siblings. His twin suffered a broken neck in a car crash, at the age of 19.[1] Don describes his parents as being "very strict".[4]

Don was educated at three independent schools: Quidhampton School in Basingstoke, Hampshire, Bigshotte School in Wokingham, Berkshire, and at Malvern College in Malvern, Worcestershire, a college he hated.[5] He then attended a state comprehensive school, the Vyne School, in Hampshire. He failed his A levels and while studying for re-takes at night school, worked on a building site and a pig farm by day. During his childhood he had become an avid gardener and farmer.[5] He was determined to go to Cambridge out of "sheer bloody-mindedness", attending Magdalene College,[6][7][8] where he read English and met his future wife Sarah (née Erskine).[9] He was a Cambridge Half Blue for boxing.[10]

Career

Don records a piece to camera, for BBC Gardeners' World, at Gardeners' World Live 2012

In the 1980s Don and his wife formed a successful company that made and sold costume jewellery under the name Monty Don Jewellery. The collapse of the company in the early 1990s prompted him to embark on a career in writing and broadcasting. He has written about the rise and collapse of their business in The Jewel Garden, an autobiographical book written with his wife. Reflecting on the experience, he writes "We were lambs to the slaughter and we lost everything, [...] we lost our house, our business. We sold every stick of furniture we had at Leominster market". He was unemployed from 1991 to 1993.[5][6]

Don's first TV work came as the presenter of a gardening segment on breakfast show This Morning. He featured as a guest presenter for the BBC's Holiday programme. From 1994 to 1995 he appeared from time to time as one of the presenters for the weekly science programme Tomorrow's World on BBC One. He went on to present several Channel 4 land and gardening series: Don Roaming, Fork to Fork, Real Gardens and Lost Gardens, and wrote a regular weekly gardening column for The Observer between February 1994 and May 2006 and for the Daily Mail and Mail Online since 2004.

Don had never received formal training as a gardener. He commented, "I was – am – an amateur gardener and a professional writer. My only authority came from a lifetime of gardening and a passion amounting to an obsession for my own garden."[11]

He is a keen proponent of organic gardening and the practice of organic techniques, to some extent, features in all of his published and broadcast work. The organic approach is most prominent in his 2003 book The Complete Gardener. This has led him into some controversy with those advocating non-organic techniques, with some criticising his position of influence presenting Gardeners' World and exclusion of non-organic solutions to pests and diseases in the garden.[12]

Don in 2007

Don was the main presenter on BBC Two's Gardeners' World from 2003 to 2008 succeeding Alan Titchmarsh. He was the first self-taught horticulturist presenter in the show's 36-year history, stepping down only after suffering a minor stroke.[5][13] After viewing figures for Gardeners' World fell[14] below two million for the first time in 2009,[15] in January 2010, changes were announced to the programme in an attempt to entice viewers back.[16] In December 2010, it was announced that Don would be returning to the programme as lead presenter for the 2011 series, replacing Toby Buckland.[17][18] Reaction to the announcement was divided on the programme's blog.[19] Since March 2011 he has been presenting the programme from his own garden (called Longmeadow) in Herefordshire.[20] He is frequently seen with his Golden Retriever Nigel, who has his own Twitter account.[21] In 2016 Don also introduced viewers of BBC Gardeners' World to a new Golden Retriever called Nell (born 22 September 2015) who has her own Twitter account.[22][23][24]

In 2014 Don became the lead presenter for the BBC's flagship Chelsea Flower Show coverage, again replacing Titchmarsh who had anchored the coverage of the show for some 30 years.[25]

Don featured in the BBC programme and book, Growing out of Trouble, in which several heroin addicts manage a 6-acre (2.4 ha) Herefordshire smallholding in an attempt at rehabilitation.[5] He also presented Around the World in 80 Gardens (BBC Two 27 January – 30 March 2008) and in December 2008, narrated a programme about the cork oak forests of Portugal, for the BBC's natural history series Natural World.[26] He presented My Dream Farm, a series which helped people learn to become successful smallholders (Channel 4, January 2010)[27][28] and Mastercrafts, a six-part series for BBC Two, which celebrated six traditional British crafts.[29] He has twice been a panellist on the BBC's Question Time (February 2009 and March 2010) and his family history was the subject of the fourth programme in the seventh series of the BBC genealogy programme Who Do You Think You Are? (August 2010). In April 2011 Don presented Italian Gardens, a four-part BBC2 series which was accompanied by the publication of a book.[30][31] In February 2013, a companion series, Monty Don's French Gardens, was broadcast.[32] In 2013 Don presented an episode of Great British Garden Revival. In 2015 he presented The Secret History of the British Garden, a BBC Two series, in four parts, charting the development of British gardens from the 17th to the 20th century.[33] Since 2014, Don has presented three series of Big Dreams, Small Spaces[34] on BBC2, where he helps amateur gardeners in creating their own 'dream spaces' on a domestic scale.

Between 2008 and 2016 Don was President of the Soil Association.[35] He is currently a patron of Bees for Development Trust[36] and the Pope's Grotto Preservation Trust.[37]

Don's sartorial style in the garden has been the subject of some critical attention, with Richard D. North commenting, in 2013:

At home and abroad, Monty Don is the paysan manqué. Where an arts presenter might eschew the little black Armani suit and the dazzling white shirt for the crumpled linen, Don’s gear retreats into the manly rumpledon of a workman’s cotton drill. He is not quite the Mr McGregor of the Potter books: real-life ancient gardeners wore mighty cords and moleskins, tweeds and flannels – and sacks if the weather was bad enough. The Don affectation is one tad more painterly than that.

... I guess that this is where we come up against the row within Monty Don, between the lightly earthy garden enthusiast and the grimmer unworldly hippy moralist. Well, we all have an inner cheerfully accepting Cavalier, and it does battle with our gloomier Roundhead.[38]

In 2005 Don himself dedicated a whole column to this subject, commenting:

"I get lots of emails, lots of letters. A few are crazed, quite a few astonishingly demanding...quite a surprisingly large chunk of letters and emails are about one specific topic that is at first appearance only tangentially about gardening. These are the ones asking me about the clothes that I garden in."[39]

In 2016 Hodder Books published an audiobook of Don's Nigel: My Family and Other Dogs.[40]

In January 2018 he presented the two-part BBC series Paradise Gardens, travelling across the Islamic world and beyond in search of paradise gardens and considering their place in the Quran.[41][42][43]

In February 2019 a similar two-part BBC series Japanese Gardens gave similar treatment to Gardens in Japan[44], an American Gardens series is planned for 2020.[45]

Personal life

Monty and Sarah married in 1983 and have three children. The couple lived in Islington, north London, while Don pursued postgraduate study at the London School of Economics, worked as a waiter at Joe Allen restaurant in Covent Garden and later as a dustman, and completed two unpublished novels (The Clematis Affair and An Afternoon in Padua), described as "excruciatingly bad" in The Jewel Garden.[46] Meanwhile, Sarah trained as a jeweller. The couple then lived in Ufton Road, De Beauvoir where they made their first garden.[47] In 1989 Don moved to The Hanburies, a large country house in Herefordshire. The making of the gardens there and the subsequent loss of the house in the aftermath of the crash of their business was the subject of his first published book The Prickotty Bush. He has lived near Ivington, Herefordshire, England since 1991.[48] He has four dogs: Nigel (a Golden Retriever), Nell (a Golden retriever new for 2016), Brenda (a Miniature Dachshund), and Barry-Anne (a Jack Russell).[49]

Don has a sheep farm, on which he keeps 500 ewes, and where he is helped by one of his sons. His second son grows vegetables. Neither son is particularly interested in gardening.[50]

Don has written of his struggle with depression since the age of 25[51] and Seasonal Affective Disorder.[5] He describes in his memoir "great spans of muddy time" in which there is nothing but depression. He noted "'Earth heals me better than any medicine".[5] He has had cognitive behavioural therapy and took Prozac before favouring a lightbox, now a recognised aid for Seasonal Affective Disorder sufferers. He had peritonitis in 2007 and a minor stroke in 2008.[5][13] Shortly before he fell ill with his stroke, Don had launched the Monty Don Project, a charity to help persistent offenders and drug addicts heal themselves by working the land.[52]

In July 2006 he appeared on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, choosing an eclectic mix of pop and classical records; the Beatles' "A Hard Day's Night" was his favourite disc, his book choice was Collected Poems by Henry Vaughan and his luxury item the painting Hendrikje Bathing by Rembrandt.[53]

In May 2016 Don revealed that years of gardening had left him with "dodgy knees", from which he was "almost constantly in pain". But he dismissed any suggestion of replacement joints, saying: "Listen, when you get to 60, you ache. Just take it."[54]

Honours

Don was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2018 Birthday Honours for services to horticulture, to broadcasting and to charity.[55]

Publications

Books

  • 1990: The Prickotty Bush, Macmillan, ISBN 978-0333-5118-86
  • 1995: The Weekend Gardener
  • 1997: The Sensuous Garden
  • 1998: Gardening Mad
  • 1999: Fork to Fork (From the Garden to the Table: Growing, Cooking, and Eating Your Own Food in US, 2003)
  • 2003: The Complete Gardener
  • 2004: The Jewel Garden (Hodder & Stoughton), with Sarah Don
  • 2005: Gardening From Berryfields
  • 2006: Growing out of Trouble
  • 2006: My Roots: A Decade in the Garden
  • 2008: Around the World in 80 Gardens
  • 2009: The Ivington Diaries[48]
  • 2010: My Dream Farm
  • 2010: The Home Cookbook, with Sarah Don
  • 2011: Great Gardens of Italy
  • 2012: Gardening at Longmeadow
  • 2013: The Road to Le Tholonet: A French Garden Journey[56]
  • 2016: Nigel: My Family and Other Dogs, Two Roads, ISBN 978-1473-6416-93
  • 2017: Down to Earth: Gardening Wisdom
  • 2018: Paradise Gardens
  • 2019: Japanese Gardens: A Journey

DVDs

  • 2011: Italian Gardens
  • 2014: French Gardens

References

  1. ^ a b "He gave up his jewels but found gold in the garden". The Sunday Times. London. 29 October 2006. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
  2. ^ a b "Feuds, shipwrecks and marmalade millionaires: Monty Don digs up his family secrets". Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  3. ^ Who Do You Think You Are?
  4. ^ "My Secret Life: Monty Don, gardener, 54". 3 October 2009. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h "Green fingers, silver tongue". Observer article 25 May 2008
  6. ^ a b "He gave up his jewels but found gold in the garden". The Times Online. London. 29 October 2006. Retrieved 13 March 2010.
  7. ^ Sale, Jonathan (2 December 1999). "Passed/Failed: Monty Don". London: The Independent. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  8. ^ "Meet Monty Don". UKTV Gardens. Archived from the original on 30 March 2008. Retrieved 22 May 2008. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ Kellaway, Kate (8 March 2009). "The interview: Monty Don". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 13 May 2010.
  10. ^ "The likely lads, Telly gardening is set for a huge shake-up this spring. Sarah Raven meets Monty Don, " The Daily Telegraph, London, 1 March 2003. Retrieved on 8 February 2016.
  11. ^ Don, Monty (28 May 2006). "Through the garden gate". The Observer. London. Retrieved 11 July 2008.
  12. ^ "Monty Don in row with BBC over pledge he will 'promote non organic gardening'". The Telegraph. London. Retrieved 29 July 2016.
  13. ^ a b "TV gardener Monty Don has stroke". BBC. 22 May 2008. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
  14. ^ Hardy, Rebecca (28 February 2011). 'It’ll take more than a stroke to hold me back'. Daily Mail. Retrieved 28 February 2011.
  15. ^ Smyth, Chris (12 January 2010). Gardeners’ World going back to its roots after gimmicky makeover, say producers. The Times. Retrieved 28 February 2011.
  16. ^ Richardson, Tim (12 January 2010). Gardeners' World: BBC goes back to basics. The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 28 February 2011.
  17. ^ Singh, Anita (7 December 2010). Monty Don returning to Gardeners' World.The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 28 February 2011.
  18. ^ "Buckland to host Gardeners' World". BBC. 13 August 2008. Retrieved 9 March 2010.
  19. ^ Pasco, Adam (7 December 2010). Monty Don returns to Gardeners’ World. Gardeners' musings (Gardener's World official blog). www.gardenersworld.com.
  20. ^ Cavendish, Lucy (8 March 2013). "Monty Don: My garden has come into itself, for better or for worse". Radio Times. Retrieved 14 March 2014.
  21. ^ Twitter account for Nigel: https://twitter.com/montysdognigel
  22. ^ Twitter account for Nell: https://twitter.com/montysdognell
  23. ^ BBC official Gardeners World Facebook page - 4 March 2016: https://www.facebook.com/BBCGardenersWorld/posts/1959884204237398:0
  24. ^ "Links". 25 May 2017. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  25. ^ "TV job loss 'hurt', says Titchmarsh: Former Chelsea Flower Show host says he left coverage because his role as lead presenter was given to Monty Don".
  26. ^ "Natural World: Cork – Forest in a Bottle". The NatureWatch. 2008. Archived from the original on 6 March 2009. Retrieved 22 December 2008. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  27. ^ "My dream farm". Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  28. ^ "My Dream Farm, Channel 4, review". The Daily Telegraph. London. 22 January 2010. Retrieved 13 May 2010.
  29. ^ "Mastercrafts - BBC Two". BBC. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  30. ^ "The Italian Job" by Monty Don, Daily Mail Weekend magazine, Weekend Gardening section. 12.03.2011.
  31. ^ "Monty Don’s Italian Campaign". The Daily Telegraph, by Monty Don, 11 March 2011.
  32. ^ "Monty Don's French Gardens". BBC programme website.
  33. ^ "The Secret History of the British Garden - BBC Two". BBC. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  34. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b071c28x/episodes/guide BBC programme website.
  35. ^ "Monty Don: "I still feel like a black sheep-ish 25-year-old"". Radio Times. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
  36. ^ "Staff, Patrons, Trustees and Volunteers". Retrieved 8 July 2017.
  37. ^ "Pope's Grotto Preservation Trust".
  38. ^ "Monty Don, in peasant blue, on grand French gardens". Richard D North. 6 February 2013. Retrieved 22 April 2016.
  39. ^ Monty Don. "Dirty Dressing". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 April 2016.
  40. ^ "NIGEL: MY FAMILY AND OTHER DOGS written and read by Monty Don - audiobook extract". Hodder Books. Retrieved 27 October 2017.
  41. ^ "Monty Don's Paradise Gardens - BBC Two". BBC. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  42. ^ Wollaston, Sam (20 January 2018). "Monty Don's Paradise Gardens review – a heady tour of earthly delights". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  43. ^ Peskett, Matt (19 January 2018). "Monty Don's Paradise Gardens review – More Than Just Gardens". Grow Like Grandad. Retrieved 20 January 2018.
  44. ^ "Monty Don's Japanese Gardens".
  45. ^ "Monty Don's Twitter".
  46. ^ "The Jewel Garden - Monty Don, Sarah Don, Monty Don & Sarah Don - Google Books". Books.google.co.uk. 1 March 2012. Retrieved 22 April 2016.
  47. ^ "Time and place: Monty Don". The Sunday Times. 6 March 2011. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
  48. ^ a b Bloomsbury.com. "The Ivington Diaries". Bloomsbury Publishing. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  49. ^ Kate Kellaway and Hermione Hoby. "Kate Kellaway interviews Monty Don | Life and style". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 April 2016.
  50. ^ "Digging Monty Don: TV's favourite gardener on turning 60". BelfastTelegraph.co.uk. 6 May 2015. Retrieved 22 April 2016.
  51. ^ Don, Monty (22 February 2004). "Now we are 10". The Observer. London. Retrieved 11 July 2008.
  52. ^ "'I think I'm dying': Monty Don speaks for the first time of the stroke". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  53. ^ "Desert Island Discs: Monty Don" 14th July 2006
  54. ^ "'I'm ignoring it' Monty Don reveals how years of gardening has left him with 'dodgy knees'". 17 May 2016. Retrieved 30 June 2017.
  55. ^ "No. 62310". The London Gazette (Supplement). 9 June 2018. p. B11.
  56. ^ "Monty Don on French gardening leave". The Independent. 1 May 2013. Retrieved 7 July 2014.
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