MONTY DON IS BACK!!

When the mighty Mr Alan Titchmarsh announced that he was giving up his role as the nation’s head gardener, shockingly (as it seems now) as far back as in 2003, we bumbling amateur gardeners who attempt in our own small way to beautify this particular dark corner of the world which we live in were, as the saying goes, ‘shaken to the core’. We were rather used to that nice ‘Mr Titmouse’ and his friendly, cosy ways, and we weren’t really sure we wanted to have to have some new relationship thrust upon us with an as yet unknown quantity who might be more shouty, more revolutionary or just not be a very friendly face.

We fretted.

We worried.

We wondered just who it was going to be.

Monty - back in his garden

Some time later, it was announced that it was to be Mr Monty Don and we worried and we fretted again. T’beloved had had some bad experiences watching him in previous years and had been less than impressed if truth be told, and so was very much in need of convincing that his were the safest of hands into which to put our gardening trust. But, as we are not generally cringing wallflowers when it comes to such matters, we stiffened our sinews, girded up our loins, parked ourselves upon the sofa, and prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Within a very short space of time, initially due to his convincing us that he literally really did ‘know his onions’, we were convinced by him, and we spent a happy five years in his honest and sincere company, discovering a truly caring and sensitive gardener along the way who also had a very organic and environmentally friendly slant, and we saw that it was good.

And then suddenly he was taken ill, and he was gone from our screens, and the mysteries of ‘double digging’ and ‘hard pruning’ were left in the hands of others to explain. Worse still, a young pretender came along and things did not go well between us. I’m sure it was never his fault, and he did seem to be a likeable enough young chap, but the programme appeared to have a new emphasis. It seemed to now focus upon the experiences of those dreaded media stalwarts, the “real people” and a tendency towards “Blue Peter” style high jinks soon found us drifting away from a programme that no longer seemed to be talking to us and seemed to be aiming for an “X-Factor” type of popularist ‘who-do-you-like-the-best?’ tomfoolery or a kind of “Masterchef” skill challenge. We quietly gravitated towards the various editions of “Qi” that called to us from the other side and left them to their madness.

I know that it wasn’t their fault. Broadcasting is a tough old game and young minds with fresh ideas need to come along and put their own mark onto things and shake them up a bit. If something is seen as being ‘old-fashioned’ these days, it’s taken away in a blanket and quietly put out of its misery. The old adage of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” just doesn’t seem to have much currency in the modern media world which now feels that the only way it can matter, function fully, and grab our fleeting attention is if it can engage with us personally and individually, and force us, however much we might want to resist it, to interact with it. People want, they seem to imagine, their television screens to be full of ‘people like us’, ordinary people doing things to show us it is possible for us to do it, but I’m not really sure that’s actually true. Give me an expert any day over an idiot like me. I’d rather be shown how to do something by someone who actually knows what he’s talking about than just ask some complete stranger what he ‘reckons’ I should try. If I need some plumbing done, I’ll either get a professional in, or, at the very least, read up on what a recognised expert might advise. It’s unlikely that I’d just place the job in the hands of someone who just happened to be passing or just rang me up because he ‘reckoned’ he knew better.

But last week I opened up the Radio Times to find out that Monty was returning, and the joy in our household was unconfined. Sanity has prevailed, and now Monty’s back in his garden, all is right with this Gardeners’ World.