Monty Don

Feuds, shipwrecks and marmalade millionaires: Monty Don digs up his family secrets

By MONTY DON FOR MAILONLINE

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1298350/How-Monty-Don-dug...

UPDATED: 22:30, 30 July 2010

When I was approached by the BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? team at the end of last year, I never imagined there would be enough material from my past to make a programme.
How wrong I was. It was to take me on a journey of discovery on which I would uncover surprises and revelations that will stay with me for ever.
I was brought up in a small north Hampshire village in the middlest of middle England. Yet, without any sense of repression, my family knew our place in the world - and a very secure place that was too. Revelations: Gardening presenter Monty Don was stunned by the stories uncovered when BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? delved into his family past Revelations: Gardening presenter Monty Don was stunned by the stories uncovered when BBC's Who Do You Think You Are? delved into his family past I was raised in a solid Victorian villa, designed in the 1870s by my maternal great grandfather Matthew Wyatt, and it was here that both my grandfather and mother had been raised before me. Every piece of furniture, painting, plate, knife, fork or garden tool had some story behind it. The Wyatts had been a family of architects for at least five generations. They built the church I went to every Sunday and the rectory where my best friend lived.

My mother, Janet, was an only child (as was my father, Dennis) and she was the last of that line of Wyatts. But she had lots of distant cousins, many of whom lived in the village, so I was always very aware of a strong sense of an extended family that shared a well-documented history.

My mother also made sure that as my brothers, sisters and I grew up, we learned the details of our heritage.

My father, however, never spoke of his ancestors. This didn't seem curious at the time - our family was so dominated by my mother's side that, frankly, we had enough relatives to deal with. Besides, we visited his parents - my grandparents - often at their home in Esher in Surrey. I knew very little about them, other than that they were Scottish, had once been wealthy and that their house was almost like a shrine to Scotland, even though both had been born and lived their long lives entirely in England. There was some mystery in this: if they were so proud of being Scottish, why did they live in England? But I could not imagine the extent of the revelations to be uncovered by the programme's researchers that would reveal why.

We filmed my episode either side of Easter. It was the first filming I'd done in 20 years of television where I was not controlling the content nor speaking directly to the camera, and I found this extremely strange for the first few days.

We started at the house of my older brother, David. He still lives in the village in which we were raised and has dozens of documents, photos and certificates which helped me on my first step of the journey. Family history: (L to R) Monty's great grandmother, Charlotte, her father, Rev Charles Hodge, and great grandfather William Keiller

With these papers alone I was able to go back 150 years to my great-great grandparents or, more precisely, my mother's grandmother's parents, the Hodges.

As the only child of an only child there were no close living relatives on my mother's line, just a few pictures and references to the Hodge family. Nothing else.

Despite all the talk and information about the Wyatts down the years, the Hodges - who I am just as closely related to - were shadowy figures.

My pursuit took me to Nottingham University's archives and a small pamphlet of a sermon preached in August 1847 by my great-great grandfather, the Reverend Charles Hodge.

It was a long tirade against the poor of his parish of Clarborough near Retford in Nottinghamshire for not being sufficiently pious. It is a hellfire and damnation, melodramatic affair, and a million miles from the calm, politely Church of England world I was brought up in. This was an angry, passionate man.

I discovered from his letters in the archives, that he had 11 children - two of whom died in infancy - and that, astonishingly, his wife, Anne, left him and went to New Zealand in the early 1850s. Not only did she abandon him but also their nine children, one of whom was less than a year old - my great grandmother, Charlotte, was just three years old.

One of the reasons behind Anne's swift departure to a country so far away seems to have been that the Church of England had obtained vast tracts of land from the New Zealand government and was offering it to clergymen to colonise.

Anne was one of these very earliest settlers. I was never to find out what made a woman aged 48 go to such extremes as to travel for four months to the other side of the world completely alone and to a land that was scarcely discovered by Europeans.

But Anne must have been a determined woman - she had to camp on the shore while she built a log cabin and cleared her land. She stayed in New Zealand for several years, then returned to her husband in the UK for a period of reconciliation.

This seems to have worked - in part - as she later returned to New Zealand with Charles and four of their sons, but leaving behind my great grandmother, Charlotte, and four other siblings. She lived out her life there - she died in 1890 at the age of 88.

When I went to Charles's church at Clarborough I had two shocks. The first was a portrait of him in the vestry. The second I saw it I realised that I knew him and had done so all my life.

Hanging at the foot of the stairs in my childhood home was a portrait of an unidentified man, which I now know to be Charles - and I still have it on the wall of my own home.

The second shock was to see a memorial on the wall recording his death by drowning. Charles was on board the steam clipper Royal Charter when it went down on the night of 25 October 1859 in a storm, just off the coast of Anglesey.

Of the 493 passengers and crew, only 39 survived. He was returning from New Zealand and was just a few hours away from his destination of Liverpool when a great wave broke the ship in two. His body was never found.

I visited Moelfre Bay, where the ship was lost on a bleak day. It was a deeply sobering thought to see how close to the shore the ship was when it was crushed by the storm. Charlotte lost her father that night and never saw or contacted her mother again.

Life changing: Don says the secrets he discovered will stay with him for ever

No wonder she submerged her family story into that of her husband, Matthew Montagu Wyatt, and no wonder my mother never referred to the branch of her family in New Zealand.

The second story we followed was on my father's side of the family. His mother, my granny Leila Keiller, who died in 1981, came from a Scottish family whose fortune had been boosted, bizarrely, by a shipload of oranges. Leila's great grandmother, Janet, had bought the fruit that had been used as ballast for other cargo and made them into jam. This had started the British love affair with marmalade.

Of course, marmalade had existed in a jellied form for centuries, but no one had ever thought of making a preserve with it, and Janet's inclusion of the orange rind as well as the pulp was the single stroke of genius that created a vast business empire in Dundee.

Janet eventually handed the business over to her son, James, and it became known as James Keiller & Sons - the sons being Alexander and William.

A trip to Edinburgh records office, and then to Dundee, revealed extraordinary detailed accounts and letters between granny's father, William, and his elder brother, Alexander.

The two men could not abide each other and their letters drip with suppressed hostility, although between them they ran the company that was, for a while, the largest and most successful confectioners in Britain. My great grandfather, William, set up a factory in Guernsey to avoid paying sugar tax, thus undercutting all competitors, and the business grew bigger than either Cadbury's or Rowntrees in their day - and both men became enormously wealthy.

But business life in Victorian Britain was very tough and almost completely unregulated. Alexander seems to have been an exceptionally tough, bruising man, living in Dundee until the day he died in 1877, but William, the more easy-going but better manager of the two brothers, got used to an extremely wellheeled life in Guernsey. He set up home in a grand house in London where he expected to run the company after his brother's death. However, he was bypassed in favour of Alexander's son, John - whom he also seems to have disliked - and so, after the death of his first wife, he retired from day-to-day management to live in great luxury at 55 - the age I am now - with a new young wife and a second family in London.

Ironically, it turns out that he bought great tranches of land in New Zealand for the three sons from his first marriage. Their descendants - my cousins - are still out there, as are the offspring from the Hodge children that moved there.

None of the money from marmalade filtered down to my family - instead, it seems to have been spent digging up one of Britain's greatest ancient monuments. In 1899, the year my great grandfather, William, died, Alexander's grandson, who was named after his grandfather, inherited the bulk of the business.

He was an amateur archeologist and sold his London mansion, his estate in Scotland and his yacht to finance the excavation of Avebury stone circles in Wiltshire.

He bought nearly 1,000 acres of land around the site to protect it from commercial encroachment and eventually gave it all to the National Trust, dying childless in 1955, the year I was born.

I had assumed that I had discovered as much as I could about my family, but one final story, which regrettably never made the programme, brought the one truly jaw-dropping moment for me. Anne Hodge, who bolted to New Zealand, had one more surprise in store.

Through her Scottish Erskine ancestry, which dates back to Sir Alexander Erskine of Gogar, guardian to James 1st of England, whom he brought up at Stirling Castle, it turns out that I am related to my wife's first husband. It is something that I, and I suspect he, would not have guessed in a thousand years.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Montagu Denis Wyatt Don

8 July 1955 (age 59) Berlin, Germany Residence Ivington, Herefordshire, England Nationality English Ethnicity White English Alma mater Magdalene College, Cambridge Occupation Television presenter, gardener, writer Years active (1994–present) Spouse(s) Sarah Don (1983–present) Children 2 sons, 1 daughter Parents Denis Don (deceased) Janet (née Wyatt, deceased) Montagu Denis Wyatt "Monty" Don (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

Monty Don was born in Berlin, to British parents, Denis T. K. Don, a career soldier posted in Germany, and Janet Montagu (née Wyatt). Both parents died in the 1980s.[2] Don has a twin sister, an elder brother David, and two other siblings. His twin suffered a broken neck in a car crash, aged 19.[1][dead link]

Both his paternal grandmother and grandfather were Scottish, through whom he is descended from the Keiller family of Dundee, inventors of chip marmalade in 1797.[3] Meanwhile, on his maternal side, he is descended from the Wyatts, who were a prominent dynasty of architects.[3]

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.[4] 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.[4] He determined to go to Cambridge out of "sheer bloody-mindedness", attending Magdalene College,[1][5][6] where he read English and met his future wife Sarah.[7]

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. "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 wrote. He was unemployed from 1991 to 1993.[1][4]

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. 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. 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."[8] He is a keen proponent of organic gardening and the practice of organic techniques, to some extent, features in all of his published work. The organic approach is most prominent in his 2003 book The Complete Gardener.

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.[4][9]After viewing figures for Gardener's World fell[10] below two million for the first time in 2009,[11] in January 2010, changes were announced to the programme in an attempt to entice viewers back.[12] In December 2010, it was announced that Don would be returning to the programme as lead presenter for the 2011 series, replacing Toby Buckland.[13][14] Reaction to the announcement was divided on the programme's blog.[15] Since March 2011 he has been presenting the programme from his own garden (called Longmeadow) in Herefordshire.[16]

Don featured in the BBC programme and book, Growing out of Trouble, in which several heroin addicts manage a 6-acre (24,000 m2) Herefordshire smallholding in an attempt at rehabilitation.[4] 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.[17] He presented My Dream Farm, a series which helped people learn to become successful smallholders (Channel 4, January 2010)[18][19] and Mastercrafts, a six-part series for BBC Two, which celebrated six traditional British crafts.[20] 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.[21][22]

In late 2008 Don became President of the Soil Association and is a Patron of Bees for Development Trust.[23]

In 2013, Don presented an episode of Great British Garden Revival.

Personal life

Don 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. Meanwhile Sarah trained as a jeweller.

Don has written of his struggle with depression since the age of 25[24] and Seasonal Affective Disorder.[4] 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".[4] 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.[4][9]

He lives near Ivington, Herefordshire, England, and has lived in Herefordshire for over 20 years.

Publications

1990: The Prickotty Bush 1995: The Weekend Gardener 1997: The Sensuous Garden 1998: Gardening Mad 2003: The Complete Gardener 2003: From the Garden to the Table: Growing, Cooking, and Eating Your Own Food 2004: The Jewel Garden (Hodder & Stoughton), with Sarah Don 2005: Gardening From Berryfields 2006: Fork to Fork 2006: Growing out of Trouble 2006: My Roots: A Decade in the Garden 2008: Around the World in 80 Gardens 2009: The Ivington Diaries 2010: My Dream Farm 2011: Italian Gardens 2013: The Road to Le Tholonet: A French Garden Journey[25]

References

^ Jump up to: a b c d "He gave up his jewels but found gold in the garden". The Times Online (London). 29 October 2006. Retrieved 13 March 2010. Jump up ^ Who Do You Think You Are? ^ Jump up to: a b "Feuds, shipwrecks and marmalade millionaires: Monty Don digs up his family secrets" 30 July 2010 ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h "Green fingers, silver tongue". Observer article 25 May 2008 Jump up ^ Sale, Jonathan (2 December 1999). "Passed/Failed: Monty Don". London: The Independent. Retrieved 2009. Jump up ^ "Meet Monty Don". UKTV Gardens. Retrieved 22 May 2008. Jump up ^ Kellaway, Kate (8 March 2009). "The interview: Monty Don". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 13 May 2010. Jump up ^ Don, Monty (28 May 2006). "Through the garden gate". The Observer (London). Retrieved 11 July 2008. ^ Jump up to: a b "TV gardener Monty Don has stroke". BBC. 22 May 2008. Retrieved 9 March 2010. Jump up ^ Hardy, Rebecca (28 February 2011). 'It’ll take more than a stroke to hold me back'. The Daily Mail. Retrieved 28 February 2011. Jump up ^ Smyth, Chris (12 January 2010). Gardeners’ World going back to its roots after gimmicky makeover, say producers. The Times. Retrieved 28 February 2011. Jump up ^ Richardson, Tim (12 January 2010). Gardeners' World: BBC goes back to basics. The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 28 February 2011. Jump up ^ Singh, Anita (7 December 2010). Monty Don returning to Gardeners' World. The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 28 February 2011. Jump up ^ "Buckland to host Gardeners' World". BBC. 13 August 2008. Retrieved 9 March 2010. Jump up ^ Pasco, Adam (7 December 2010). Monty Don returns to Gardeners’ World. Gardeners' musings (Gardener's World official blog). www.gardenersworld.com. Jump up ^ Cavendish, Lucy (8 March 2013). "Monty Don: My garden has come into itself, for better or for worse". Retrieved 14 March 2014. Jump up ^ "Natural World: Cork – Forest in a Bottle". The NatureWatch. 2008. Retrieved 22 December 2008.[dead link] Jump up ^ My dream farm Jump up ^ "My Dream Farm, Channel 4, review". The Daily Telegraph (London). 22 January 2010. Retrieved 13 May 2010. Jump up ^ BBC Mastercrafts Jump up ^ "The Italian Job" by Monty Don, Daily Mail Weekend magazine, Weekend Gardening section. 12.03.2011. Jump up ^ "Monty Don’s Italian Campaign". The Daily Telegraph, by Monty Don, 11 March 2011. Jump up ^ http://www.beesfordevelopment.org/about-us/patrons Jump up ^ Don, Monty (22 February 2004). "Now we are 10". The Observer (London). Retrieved 11 July 2008. Jump up ^ "Monty Don on French gardening leave". the Independent. 1 May 2013. Retrieved 7 July 2014.

External links

Official Monty Don website BBC pages Monty Don at the Internet Movie Database Who Do You Think You Are page The Monty Project Social Enterprise Ambassadors Monty Don's Final Observer Column Video Interview with Monty Don Around the World in 80 Gardens. Times Interview with Monty Don May 2007.