Monty Don

Presenter0:00

Hello, Anchor.

Monty Don0:01

Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and six, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My castaway this week is a gardener. He needs soil, he says, like a fix, and certainly it's proved to be his salvation. Today he's one of Britain's best known gardening personalities with his own television show, books, and newspaper articles. The rebellious child of an affluent but frugal family, he made his own way to Cambridge, where he read English. He eloped with the woman who became his wife, went through a business that prospered, then failed, and was sinking fast when the offer of gardening work finally arrived. Since then he hasn't looked back. The ground, he says, is where I am at home, where I belong, like a sailor and the sea. He is Monty Don. It obviously took you a long time to come to that conclusion, Monty. Was there a moment? You know, what was the epiphany when you thought, Ah, the soil is where I belong?

Monty Don1:18

There was a particular moment, but it it took took a while.

Presenter1:21

Yeah.

Monty Don1:21

Yeah.

Presenter1:21

Uh

Monty Don1:23

Myself and my brothers and sisters were all made to work in the garden.

Monty Don1:26

And you were allocated work, and you had to just get on and do it. And this was from quite a young age. And so, for many years, I regarded it as a chore. And I remember there was one day, and I would have been about 17 now, because I was still at school, and I remember it was early spring, April, March, that sort of time, and I was sowing carrots, and I knew how to do it. I didn't need guidance, and I knew, and suddenly the warmth of the sun on the soil, and my hands on the soil, and the seeds cupped in my hands, felt

Monty Don1:58

Exactly the right thing at the right place, and I felt as at home as it's possible to be with anything or anywhere.

Presenter2:06

But it's interesting that you didn't spot that therefore that's where you should spend the rest of your life, because as we shall hear, you know, and there's a great there's a lot of detail to it, you go off and do all sorts of other things. I mean, you're sort of nearly forty before you realize that this is really what you ought to be doing for a living.

Monty Don2:19

Yeah.

Monty Don2:21

It never crossed my mind. I mean, that's the truth of it. It felt completely private. It never once until I was way into my thirties did it cross my mind that this private passion could translate into any kind of public arena at all.

Presenter2:25

Mm-hmm.

Presenter2:35

But all of that time you were aware that you felt

Presenter2:38

Pleasure being in the countryside. Yeah, I mean the turning of the ear.

Monty Don2:43

Yeah, I mean, more than pleasure. It was a sort of a cross between obsession and

Monty Don2:49

Absolutely naturally where I was at home.

Presenter2:52

And I read that when you were a boy and and sent away to boarding school, you you would weep when you came home because things had happened in the garden and you'd missed them.

Monty Don2:59

Well, there was I do remember coming home from when I was about seven from school and seeing that the beech tree had come out. There was a big beech tree by the house and the flowers had had emerged in May, and bursting into tears because somehow there had been this party without me. And at school I remember no flowers, you know, no no colour at all.

Presenter3:21

The great irony is, of course, that now you make your living out of it and and you're travelling all over the place doing Gardener's World and lots of other programmes as well, is that presumably you have to neglect your own garden.

Monty Don3:34

You're right. I mean, it's true. And it's it's not good. And it's a constant battle that one negotiates. And it can't be sustained. So so I need to spend more time with my garden.

Presenter3:45

But there's a certain person called Sarah who who keeps it going in your absence, and who, as I read it, as we shall hear, is a bit of a backbone in your life. That's um that's fair, isn't it?

Monty Don3:55

Completely.

Monty Don3:57

Everything I do in my garden.

Monty Don3:59

It's with Sarah, it's ours, it's us, and uh

Monty Don4:04

Ever since I've met her, I mean from the the first day since I've met her, I've wanted to do everything with her.

Presenter4:10

Let's have your first record. Tell me about that.

Monty Don4:11

Well, this is Bob Dylan.

Monty Don4:14

And this is a song.

Monty Don4:17

about Sarah really. And in fact Dylan had a wife called Sarah and this I know this song was written about her. It's bitter and it's angry but it's desperate because everything is surmounted with this love for Sarah and that's certainly my case. And it's called uh Nobody Sept You.

Speaker 14:36

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 14:39

Letting your hypnotizes me all holding a spell.

Speaker 14:45

Everything runs by me just like water from a well.

Speaker 14:50

Everybody wants my attention, everybody got something to sell, except you.

Speaker 14:57

Yeah, you!

Speaker 14:59

I'm in love with you.

Presenter5:04

Bob Dylan and Nobody Sept You, and a tribute to your wife Sarah, more of whom later. But let's talk about the garden that everybody knows: the Gardener's World Garden, Berry Fields. Where is it?

Monty Don5:13

Well, I can't give precise details, but it's near Stratford.

Presenter5:14

Yeah.

Presenter5:17

All right, okay. So it's in the it's sort of in the middle.

Monty Don5:17

Yeah.

Monty Don5:19

Yeah, and it's the center of the country, so

Presenter5:20

Two and a half acres, all kinds of small gardens within it, kitchen garden, dry garden, shade garden, recycled garden, cottage garden. It's really it's more of a a film set really than a garden, isn't it?

Monty Don5:33

Um, those two things are not mutually exclusive. Uh, Gardeners World Gardens have always been film sets. And the fact is we film there we're there sort of four days a week, so on and off, doing different things. Inevitably, these places are sets.

Presenter5:48

Uh

Monty Don5:49

You can imagine that.

Presenter5:49

Let me ask you quick questions that every gardener should answer, which is: what's your favourite flower?

Monty Don5:56

I'm asked this a lot, I always give the same answer, whilst but it's no harder than choosing your eight favourite records, Primrose.

Presenter6:02

Oh, I thought it was a tulip.

Monty Don6:04

Well, the thing is, it could be a tulip, but the thing about a primrose is it appears early at a time of year when I'm emerging from my own winter blues and it gives me hope, real hope.

Presenter6:14

Real hope. And what's your favorite season? Spring, therefore. Yes. And and you talk about emerging from your winter blues. I mean, that's a serious point, isn't it? You you actually suffer that ki is it is it s sad, a seasonal effect of problem.

Monty Don6:19

And and

Monty Don6:26

Is it

Monty Don6:28

I don't know. Um my doctor has suggested it might be. Um it certainly gets much worse in winter. It doesn't mean to say it doesn't happen in summer, but it's strongly affected by light.

Presenter6:40

How disabling is it, then, in the winter?

Monty Don6:42

If I do the right things.

Monty Don6:44

which involves using light boxes and involves backing off work and and you know avoiding lots of triggers, I can function at about fifty percent.

Monty Don6:55

If I do the wrong things, I can't function at all.

Presenter6:55

If I

Presenter6:57

Hugely disabled.

Monty Don6:58

There's a sort of regime that I follow which involves lots of exercise, lots of light from any source I can get it, and a sort of retreat, a hibernation from the world. So I stumble around rather ineffectively and hopelessly.

Presenter7:14

And depression is something that's dogged you, and again, we'll talk about it as we go on, but let's pause for record number two.

Monty Don7:21

Right, this this is The Beatles, and I love The Beatles. But this one reminds me of a time when I was nine, nineteen sixty four, and my older sister Anthea took me to the cinema to see A Hard Day's Night.

Monty Don7:35

in Bournemouth.

Monty Don7:37

And as the curtain went up and the opening chord was played, the entire cinema screamed.

Monty Don7:43

And for me,

Monty Don7:45

Life changed, nothing was ever the same again and this still thrills me every time I hear it.

Speaker 27:51

And I'm holy.

Speaker 17:52

Uh

Speaker 27:52

Uh

Speaker 27:53

Feeling you holding me tight, tight, yeah. It's been a hard day tonight.

Speaker 28:01

And I've been working like a dog

Monty Don8:04

It's been a while

Speaker 18:06

Our day is night.

Speaker 18:08

I should be sleeping like a love But when I get home to you I find the things that you do make me feel alright

Presenter8:20

The Beatles and a Hard Day's Night. T tell me more about your family background then, uh Monty,'cause it's unusual this strange contradiction I kind of flagged up at the top, which is that it was both affluent but frugal. Uh

Monty Don8:31

It was, and I think that it was I don't even know if that exists any more. I mean, Orwell wrote about it very well, that this display, this impoverishment, that came with a sort of very well educated, well healed background. Both my parents were only children.

Presenter8:31

They won't.

Monty Don8:43

And they grew up in what I now know to be sort of very comfortable middle-class circumstances. My mother.

Monty Don8:51

inherited sort of comfortably large house with cottages and sort of five acres of gardens and stuff. But my father never really earned any money to speak of.

Monty Don9:00

But it

Presenter9:01

But it was there really, wasn't it? And she had it. It was in there.

Monty Don9:02

She had it. She sh my mother um didn't really understand money and got cross whenever we talked about it. There was a trust fund that my grandfather left that that put us all five of us through private education. And occasionally what would happen you'd come home from school and find the bare space on the wall where a picture had been sold to pay for something or or or a piece of furniture or whatever.

Presenter9:22

And your father was ex-Army. He'd been a a major in the war and then did a variety of of jobs.

Monty Don9:25

Yeah.

Monty Don9:28

Well, he left the army in about nineteen sixty.

Monty Don9:30

and he never really found his feet in in civy life.

Presenter9:34

So your mother ruled the roost, did she?

Monty Don9:36

Uh, yeah, pretty much so. My father was a very strong figure, both physically and mentally, and I now know that he was a profoundly depressed man.

Monty Don9:44

you know, so that and that hung over the house.

Presenter9:47

Did they argue on that?

Monty Don9:47

They argue. Yeah, all the time.

Monty Don9:50

It was odd because you have this Middle England family, very sort of God-fearing. It was a strict household by any standards, but at the same time it was incredibly passionate and there was lots of emotion.

Presenter10:01

But what kind of emotion? I mean, what I don't get the impression there was much love from, let's say, mother to children.

Monty Don10:07

I don't I don't think that's fair. I think my mother did l well, I'm I'm certain she loved all of us.

Monty Don10:14

But she found it hard to show it sometimes. You know, I don't remember being cuddled much, or anything like that, or or played with. I remember her saying to me that she wished that once children reached about five she'd see them again when they were about twenty.

Presenter10:16

You know what?

Presenter10:25

Mm. Mm.

Monty Don10:26

We were complicated and she didn't like complicated things.

Presenter10:29

Yes, you said you were you were troubled, you were naughty, you were complicated, as you just said. What what did you do? Because you were effectively, again, from your own mouth, the black sheep of the family.

Monty Don10:32

Complicated you've just seen.

Monty Don10:36

Uh

Monty Don10:39

Yeah, but you see, I mean, I was, there's no question about that. And I was a naughty boy, and I was always being sent home from parties or.

Monty Don10:47

I was asked to leave my first little school because they couldn't handle me. What did you do because I was a little bit of a school? I mean, I used to sort of.

Speaker 110:51

Uh

Presenter10:51

What did you do?

Monty Don10:55

tie people up and I remember putting nettles down the girls' knickers and sort of but I was just rombosterous.

Monty Don11:02

Next record. Right. Well the next record um takes me to Cambridge because this is Haydn, Symphony number twenty two, De Philosophe. And I used to put this on in my rooms in Cambridge.

Monty Don11:16

And there was not a second I was there when I didn't feel privileged. I just felt

Monty Don11:20

Completely blessed to be there.

Monty Don11:24

I loved working.

Monty Don11:26

And even it always just triggers that sense of purpose and quiet determination with knowing that I'm on the right track.

Presenter12:36

Part of the Adagio from Haydn's Symphony No. 22 in E. Flaad de Philosoph with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle. And memories for you, Montedon of Cambridge, where you went quite late, you were twenty-one, you got yourself there in the end. But it was in Cambridge that you met Sarah. Your greatest problem there was, and there was one, she was married to somebody else.

Monty Don12:52

Yeah, yeah, you'll you'll

Monty Don12:57

She was married to someone else.

Monty Don12:59

That was a problem and that made life confusing. Uh a and a very nice fine man, you know. In fact, for a year or so it never crossed my mind that that was territory that one could enter, you know. But anyway, things happened and their marriage broke up and I have to confess that I was sort of involved in that. It didn't just happen to break up.

Monty Don13:23

And I was completely besotted by this incredibly beautiful, wonderful person who, for the first time in my life,

Monty Don13:31

understood what I said and I understood what she said and we looked at things and saw the same thing. So there was no way I could avoid that. That was just literally irresistible and caused a lot of problems and um upset the marriage and the whole thing went kerfut and that was as I was finishing Cambridge and so we had to run away together to to escape.

Monty Don13:52

You eloped. We eloped to the North Yorkshire Moors and and spent a very cold, very hungry, impoverished winter there. Yeah, exciting times, but but not always happy. I mean, it was it was very fraught.

Presenter13:52

You will

Monty Don14:06

Okay, this record this record it's Bach, the Matthew Passion, which I regard as one of the great wonders of the world.

Monty Don14:14

But what I particularly love about this bit is you have Christ.

Monty Don14:20

mocked, reviled, abused, and this sublime music and this sort of torture.

Monty Don14:26

And then this this choir, the voices rising above it, and it's it's this sense of humanity overcoming the worst of all conditions, and it's it sort of combines art, beauty and an absolute faith in humanity.

Presenter15:26

Part of the opening chorale of Bach's Matthew Passion, Komte Tochte Helftmeer Klagen, Come ye daughters, share my morning, sung by the choir of King's College and Jesus' College, Cambridge, led by Stephen Clebury. Um

Presenter15:39

Monty, you you were always Montagu up until this point, as I understand it. The name Monty Don, though, came publicly into play when you and Sarah opened a jewellery business. That's when it first came in the eighties, hm.

Monty Don15:51

Yeah. Why jewellery? Well, it's a long story and I'll try and cut it short.

Monty Don15:56

In this time I had started to do a research degree at the London School of Economics, and to my eternal credit, after about six weeks I realized that I was faking it.

Monty Don16:07

And I had the guts to admit that. And it did take guts'cause I had to sort of backtrack like mad and admit to everybody I'd wasted their time.

Monty Don16:16

And Sarah was getting involved with Jury and I said I did that everything she did fascinated me and everything I wanted to be with her and it was terribly interesting.

Monty Don16:24

And we said, okay, let's start a business. Let's do it. Let's be jewellers.

Monty Don16:28

And to our astonishment, really, it sorta happened. You know, it it it's like pretending to do something and someone saying, actually, yeah, you can do it.

Presenter16:35

It took off. You were selling into Harvin Nicholls and Bruce Oldfield. But this was eighties. It was big, bold, costumed.

Monty Don16:36

Yeah.

Monty Don16:38

Bruce Oldfield.

Monty Don16:42

Yeah, it was costume jewellery and it was about fashion. People wanted to dress up, they wanted to be glamorous.

Presenter16:42

Yeah, it's cool.

Monty Don16:47

And we were in the right place at the right time, and for about three or four years we loved it.

Presenter16:52

And you ended up with a shop in Knightsbury. Two shops in Knightsbridge.

Monty Don16:54

Two shops in 1960. Beach and Place, and we had shops and offices, and we sold all around the world. I think we sold to 60 different countries, and business was growing and growing and growing and growing. And then.

Presenter17:05

Total failure. Down it slumped. What what caused it? Was it badly run, or was it just fashion?

Monty Don17:11

It was a combination of things.

Monty Don17:14

We were so inexperienced that we were borrowing far too much. We were borrowing on future profits. I was spending too much time gardening.

Monty Don17:24

We uh and that clearly is not the right thing to do when things are going pear-shaped, and there was.

Presenter17:31

A crash!

Monty Don17:32

Better people than us went under.

Presenter17:33

Yeah.

Monty Don17:33

Yeah.

Presenter17:33

But the overdraft had soared and the checks were bouncing and interest rates doubled and rent went up.

Monty Don17:37

See ya.

Monty Don17:39

Yeah, it did, and our rank went up.

Presenter17:41

At some point in all of this, you started crying and couldn't stop.

Monty Don17:45

Yeah, well we

Monty Don17:49

things just went terribly wrong. We we bought a house in Herefordshire, and at this point we had shops in Beecham Place, big house in Herefordshire, house in London, leases on flats in London. And um

Monty Don18:04

I

Monty Don18:06

I guess sort of had what amounted to a nervous breakdown, you know, and something sort of breaks inside you and and then you have to just keep mending it. You have to keep rewiring it.

Presenter18:16

But you had children by this time, so it was hugely difficult and

Monty Don18:18

I've had three little children. Sarah, business, we had to sell our house, our car, our furniture, our everything. Everything. And you ended up living.

Presenter18:20

Sarah

Presenter18:25

And you ended up living with the in-laws.

Monty Don18:27

I blended up with my dear sweet in-laws who took us in and we were in two rooms, five of us, no jobs, but both of us lost our jobs, uh no money, huge debts and

Presenter18:37

Three.

Presenter18:41

You were thirty seven years old.

Monty Don18:43

thirty-five-ish, thirty-six, thirty-seven, and a ma and a and a sort of provider who wasn't providing and didn't look as if I really thought I'd never work again.

Presenter18:50

And Sarah gave you an ultimatum, didn't she?

Monty Don18:52

Yeah, I mean Sarah

Monty Don18:54

Said, and she always slightly tempers this when I replay this back to her, but what she said is, I, you know, she can't cope with me.

Monty Don19:02

Completely collapsing.

Monty Don19:04

And if I wasn't going to get help and I was refusing to see anyone or admit that I was collapsing, then she would have to take the children.

Monty Don19:12

And

Monty Don19:13

manage without me until such a time as I could would sort of get help.

Monty Don19:18

And so I went to my local GP and like all men said, you know, I've my arm hurts, my leg hurts, and there was lots of anything else, anything else. And I said, I feel a bit glum and of course burst into tears inevitably. And he very, very sweetly and kindly prescribed me Prozac and sort and put me to uh counselling and and all the rest of it, which I did for a number of years and gradually I started to deal with it. But it's not something that just gets better.

Speaker 119:23

My leg hurts.

Speaker 119:26

Anything else?

Monty Don19:46

Yeah.

Monty Don19:47

Right, well here is the prince of all depression, Leonard Cohen, who I adore and that growly voice, you know, you've got to have with you, it's a grown-up voice. And this is a song called Anthem, which I was listening to not so very long ago, feeling very bleak. And there is this refrain, you know, that everything that's made is broken, because that's how the light hits in. The birds they sing.

Monty Don20:18

At the break of day.

Monty Don20:22

Start again.

Speaker 220:25

I heard them say.

Speaker 220:29

Don't well.

Speaker 220:33

On what has passed away. Yeah.

Speaker 220:36

But

Monty Don20:37

Or what is yet to be.

Presenter20:41

Leonard Cohen and Anthem. In the end, Monty Donne, after all that your luck turn, just when the barrel was truly dry, the phone rang. Give me the moment.

Monty Don20:52

Well, we had bought this um

Monty Don20:55

Ramshackle run-down, incredibly beautiful house.

Monty Don21:00

And it took about a year to to make it habitable. It was condemned. And we moved in with all our boxes and sort of totally broke. I mean, as broke as it's possible to be and not be in prison.

Monty Don21:10

Uh and the phone went for the first time we fitted the phone in the day before or whatever and it was someone from Granada Television, who I'd worked for a bit summer years earlier.

Monty Don21:21

saying, Would you come up tomorrow and do um a live item for us? And I said, No, I can't, I'm moving a house. And they said, Oh, you know, please, would you? And and and they offered to pay me, I think, a hundred pounds, so I said, Yes, okay, I'll do it. And from that moment I've never been out of work.

Presenter21:37

Was this Richard and Judy?

Monty Don21:38

Yes, and I'm eternally grateful to Richard and Judy. And I worked for them for nine years. And I like the way that my amateur

Speaker 121:47

Uh

Monty Don21:51

Hobby, I suppose. But which was an obsession.

Monty Don21:55

I could share.

Monty Don21:56

I just landed on my feet, I guess.

Presenter21:58

And the observer began column.

Monty Don22:00

The observer began then again, which I, you know, did for twelve years.

Presenter22:05

Did you pay off all your debts in the end?

Monty Don22:06

Gradually it took years.

Presenter22:09

Because you didn't go bankrupt, you went into voluntary liquidation, so you had to pay off a lot of money.

Monty Don22:11

So you had to pay off a lot of money. We paid off everybody and uh went on paying well into sort of so called success. You know, it was only about the end of the nineties did we pay pay everything off. So

Presenter22:21

Yeah.

Presenter22:23

Hundreds of thousands of pounds we're talking here.

Monty Don22:24

Yeah, yeah.

Monty Don22:25

Uh something like £400,000.

Presenter22:27

You solvent now?

Monty Don22:29

Uh sort of. Uh I have a mortgage, but uh yeah, I can pay it.

Presenter22:35

Your your parents had both died in in the interim.

Presenter22:40

You'd produced, I think, two of your children while your mother was still alive.

Presenter22:45

Did they did that help you affect any kind of reunion with her? Did she have much to do with your children?

Monty Don22:49

She has

Monty Don22:50

My mother was very ill, and she had been very ill. Um she was very ill for the last sort of ten, fifteen years of her life. So she never really knew so much. So she she saw two of my children, but didn't really have anything to do with them and never sort of visited our our homes and

Presenter22:59

So she never really knew something.

Monty Don23:07

Would have liked to have done. I mean, I think she would have done if she could have done.

Presenter23:10

Hmm.

Monty Don23:11

But

Presenter23:11

I just get the impression that you left your whole family behind, this family that you'd grown up with, and there were five siblings and the mother and father that you've described. You just left all that behind. Sarah has become such a centre of your universe, and life is completely different, and there doesn't seem to be much joining up between the two.

Monty Don23:29

There's an element of that. I mean, I

Monty Don23:32

I still really um enjoy the company and presence and contact with my brothers and sisters, and I love them unreservedly.

Monty Don23:42

But I see them very seldom and we our lives don't cross very much. I guess f what was really important was physically leaving home. My father died in nineteen eighty three and

Monty Don23:54

I had only cursory contact with my mother after that and sort of didn't feel part of her life. But there's never been any rift or falling out and I don't feel it, you know. Um

Monty Don24:05

And I'm sure that um they are as surprised as I am by what's going on.

Presenter24:10

that Monte the Black Sheep made it in the end.

Monty Don24:13

Yeah, yeah, I guess so.

Monty Don24:17

Echo number six. This is my own family, my separate, my non-sibling family. This is.

Monty Don24:25

To remind me on my desert island, feeling very lonely, um, of the times at home when my children, who are now all teenagers,

Monty Don24:34

And I and Sarah have shared our music. And some of the happiest times we have in the household are when there is music blaring out, filling the entire house that we all like, and there's just this sense of shared liberation. And this is the Libertines and the Man Who Would Be King, which I I think is a fantastic performance and piece of music.

Speaker 124:59

And to the man who would be king, I would say only one thing.

Speaker 125:05

And to the man who were bigger, I would say only one.

Monty Don25:08

Only one day.

Monty Don25:11

La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la

Presenter25:27

The Libertines and the Man Who Would Be King to remind you, Monty, of your teenaged children, I take it that your household is not at all similar to the one you were brought up in.

Monty Don25:35

No, it's uh they it is a house that um is anarchic and irreverent and uh completely funny and and

Monty Don25:47

Sort of without any sort of staidness or stuffiness, and and the whole atmosphere could not be more different than my childhood.

Presenter25:55

This is in Herefordshire. It's a Tudor house. Tell me about its garden. It's two acres.

Monty Don25:56

Yeah, yeah.

Monty Don26:00

It's a two-acre garden, and when we moved there, well, we bought it in November 1991, and I started planting in April 93.

Monty Don26:10

Through that very dark period, it was a very important thing, sort of aspect of my life, because I used to lie in bed at night. I've never been a great sleeper at the best of times.

Monty Don26:20

When I'm depressed, I hardly sleep at all. And so I'd lie and bake just thinking about the garden. I'd walk it in my mind. I'd plan it and.

Monty Don26:30

I knew it completely intimately before a single plant had gone in the ground. It's highly cultivated. It's full of of plants. It has a jewel garden which we made, which is a large garden just planted in in intense jewel like colours, partly

Monty Don26:47

As holding two fingers up to the sort of failure of the jewellery business. It was us saying, look, we can make something out of this, that good came out of it.

Monty Don26:55

Um

Presenter26:55

So it's been therapy, it's also been or is, you've said, a a metaphor for your marriage, your garden.

Monty Don27:01

Yeah, because everything is done together. And our happiest times are when we're just gently working in the garden, maybe not in the same bit, but sharing the same space.

Monty Don27:13

And it's a flowering. It's something growing from that shared time. And other than the children, which obviously are the best thing we've ever grown, it's the best thing we've ever done.

Monty Don27:27

Right, this is a record by Nick Drake who I love his work, all of it. But I've chosen this, it's a track called Road, because I'm working at a project at the moment with a group of persistent offenders, most of whom are addicted to hard drugs, getting them, growing things, working with the seasons, working with the climate and the landscape, as part of a larger charity that I'm setting up. And really what this song is, it's for them really, and it's just to say that if you can make it through one day, that's enough.

Speaker 128:15

You can say the sun is shining if you really wonder I can see the moon and it seems so clear You can take a road that takes you to the stars No, I can take a road that'll see me through

Speaker 128:28

I can dig her over that her skin behind.

Presenter28:33

Nick Drake and Road. I can take the road that'll see me through, he says. It's a kind of message to yourself as well, you say.

Monty Don28:40

It is, you know, hang on in there. Um

Presenter28:43

It's very difficult listening to this story from you, really, because you sit across the table there looking as we see you on Gardener's Wild, you know. I mean, you've got a a wonderful sunny face and smile, you know. Is this s just something you come out and do in public? Are you bleak and black when you go back home?

Monty Don28:57

Yeah.

Monty Don28:59

Yeah.

Monty Don29:00

It's a family joke that I'm Gleecombach, but I have huge optimism. I'm a real optimist and I believe that if there's a will, there probably is a way.

Monty Don29:10

The good thing about my life is that there is ecstasy as well as anger. I get huge pleasure and joy.

Monty Don29:18

from the natural world and the world around me and my family and my friends. And maybe the price you pay for that is, you know, if you have your highs, you've got to have your lows.

Presenter29:28

And if Sarah hadn't come along and if you hadn't found her, what do you think might have happened?

Monty Don29:33

I I think probably I wouldn't be talking to you now. I think that I I mean, I I cannot see how I would have survived. I really can't. Um there has never been a moment when Sarah has actually stopped me.

Monty Don29:49

uh doing myself in. But there have been lots of times when if it hadn't been for her

Monty Don29:54

The world. I mean that's what that Bob Tillman song's all about.

Monty Don29:57

If it wasn't for her.

Monty Don29:59

Um there's nothing there's not enough left.

Monty Don30:03

Now, of course, you know, I've got my children, I've got my garden, and it's but the the problem is that

Monty Don30:09

When you are depressed, you don't think rationally like that.

Monty Don30:12

And so I think it would have been impossibly bleak.

Presenter30:18

Not strike up.

Monty Don30:20

Well, this is Son House. I love the blues. And he uh made this recording when he was about sixty odd, and it was made about forty years ago.

Monty Don30:31

And I love.

Monty Don30:33

The sort of way it's loud and it's proud and it's passionate and strong and yet taps into the whole biblical reference which, you know, I was brought up with, I I really know very well.

Monty Don30:45

And it seems to me that it's a defiant voice that could otherwise be oppressed, but it's not.

Monty Don30:53

And it's how you'd like to sing it.

Presenter30:54

Yeah.

Monty Don30:56

This is how I'd sing.

Speaker 230:57

Tell me who's that writing, John the Revelator. Who's that writer? John the Revelator Wrote the book of the Seven C's Who's that writing? John the Revelator. Tell me who's that writing, John the Revelator. Who's that writer? John the Revelator Wrote the book of the Seven C's.

Presenter31:24

Sunhouse and John the Revelator. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take?

Monty Don31:31

I think I mean oh this is obviously impossible. It's it's completely unfair, but I'll go with it. Um it would have to be a hard day's night. I adore the Beatles and there is this great sense of

Presenter31:33

Uh

Monty Don31:43

Going home, which I would want on that island as soon as possible.

Presenter31:50

And we give you the Bible, as you know, and the complete works of Shakespeare. What single book would you like?

Monty Don31:56

Well

Monty Don31:58

I wanted something to remind me of home.

Monty Don32:02

And

Monty Don32:03

I've gone for the collected poems of Henry Vaughan, which I know very well but I still return to again and again all the time, and I think it is exquisitely beautiful, writing about the Black Mountains, where I now have some land and intend to live the rest of my days, and I think is the most beautiful landscape in the world. So it would remind me of that landscape.

Presenter32:30

And your luxury.

Monty Don32:32

Again, really difficult, but in the end I think I would want the painting by Rembrandt.

Monty Don32:39

which is, and I'm going to pronounce this wrong, Henrika Bathing at the National Gallery. And from the moment I saw it, I remember when I first knew Sarah, I took her to see this painting.

Monty Don32:49

Because no other work that I've ever seen has such glowing love of humanity. She's not particularly beautiful.

Monty Don32:57

But she's

Monty Don32:59

Bathed in beauty.

Monty Don33:01

and stepping into the water, just lifting up her skirts, and I'd think of Sarah and I would think of that.

Monty Don33:07

And it would be humanity.

Presenter33:10

Monty Dun, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Monty Don33:13

It's been a real pleasure.

Presenter33:21

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash

Monty Don33:30

Radio 4

Speaker 134:13

Uh