Monty Don
| Monty Don | |
|---|---|
Don in 2007
|
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| Born |
Montagu Denis Wyatt Don 8 July 1955 West Berlin |
| Residence | Ivington, Herefordshire, England |
| Nationality | British |
| 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 |
Montagu Denis Wyatt "Monty" Don (born 8 July 1955) is a British television presenter, writer and speaker on horticulture, best known for presenting the BBC television series Gardeners' World.
Monty Don was born in West Berlin to British parents Denis T. K. 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. On his maternal side, he is descended from the Wyatts, who were a prominent dynasty of architects. Both parents died in the 1980s. 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. Don describes his parents as being "very strict".
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. 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. He determined to go to Cambridge out of "sheer bloody-mindedness", attending Magdalene College, where he read English and met his future wife Sarah. He was a Cambridge Half Blue for boxing.
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.
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