Gardeners' World's Monty Don shares heartbreaking reason for 'mistakes' in family life
Veteran gardener and TV presenter Monty Don has revealed the sad reason behind mistakes he made as a father. Speaking about the differences between his relationship with his father and with his own children, Monty, 69, said that because his relationship with his dad was “pretty distant” he wanted to have a closer relationship with his own children.
However, the presenter admitted this had been a difficult process, and that he had made mistakes along the way because of his work-oriented style of living.
He said that despite making mistakes that every parent makes along the way, he has a good relationship with his children as adults, while sharing that he and his wife Sarah “muddled through”.
Discussing the matter with the AI Michael Parkinson podcast, Monty ruminated: “I think as every father will say, ‘You do your best’. I think because my own relationship with my father was pretty distant and straight I both wanted it to be closer and more informal, but I wasn’t terribly good.
“I had to learn how to be a father and I made mistakes and my guess is every parent makes mistakes. I was much more work oriented, I’ve always worked hard and my parents drummed it into us to work hard and I was very, very involved in work.
“So my children were just, sort of, part of the household really, and I have a very good relationship with them now. As adults we get on really well, we never got on badly, but I never went out of my way to try and be a good father. I loved them, I did my best by them, and we muddled through.”
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The host of Gardeners' World has also spoken in recent weeks about his personal life. On the same podcast he talked about how Sarah refers to him by a different name. Whilst to the rest of the world he’s Monty, to her he’s Montagu.
He explained: “When I'm at home, I'm Montagu, and my wife, for example, has never called me Monty, my mother never called me Monty, I'm always Montagu.
“It's a completely separate life, my home life has no connection with my public life at all in so much that, you know, there's no need for them to cross over."
Whilst his name at home may be different to his name in the public sphere, Monty said this hasn’t dampened his love of gardening. He added: “The enrichment is there, the fact that I've had the privilege to go all over the world, and talk to so many people, and see so many amazing gardens, it's something that I never would have had the opportunity to do and that feeds into my home life."
