I was all about sex, drugs and rock and roll before finding gardening – I was expelled from school, admits Monty Don
MONTY Don has revealed he was all about sex, drugs and rock and roll before he fell in love with gardening.
The beloved horticulturist and presenter, 68, didn’t initially have green fingers in his teenage years.
Monty was a bit of a bad boy – and caused trouble at school.
It resulted in him being expelled from a number of schools as he branded himself a “wayward” child.
Speaking to the Dish from Waitrose podcast, Monty explained: “I’d been expelled from a few schools and I was sort of fairly wayward.
“I remember coming home from school, having a cup of tea, and going out into the garden, because that’s what I did by then, to sort of – and I remember I was sowing carrots, and I had this incredible, ecstatic moment of feeling the sunshine, of smelling the earth, of holding the seed in my hand, and it was a kind of beatific experience of just knowing that this was everything I had ever wanted, this was the whole world in this moment.
“And then I was sort of thinking, ‘Well that’s a bit strange,’ because up ‘til then sex, drugs, and rock and roll were very high on my list, and gardening was not on there, yeah!”
The Gardeners’ World star grew up on the countryside, as his parents gave him jobs to do on their huge patch of land.
“So I associated gardening with chores really,” he said.
“I’d garden so I could stop gardening and then I could go and play and do other things.
“And it wasn’t until I was seventeen, by which time I knew how to garden. I didn’t want to, but I did, you know, I mean, it was just like, you know, to chop an onion.”
Monty, whose dog Nell passed away last month, previously revealed he plans to quit BBC Two’s Gardeners’ World.
He’s appeared on the programme for the last 20 years having made his debut on the show in 2003.
Series 4 of Dish from Waitrose & Partners, hosted by Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett, is available on all podcast providers tomorrow.