The Wicklow-born designer’s relationship with the nature-loving monarch goes back more than a decade, when he was appointed a special ambassador by the then Prince of Wales
Living with Lucy continues this Sunday on Virgin Media Television with a revealing and heartfelt third episode featuring celebrity garden designer and television personality Diarmuid Gavin.
Celebrity gardener Diarmuid Gavin has revealed how Britain’s King Charles sent a heartwarming message to his daughter, Eppie, to mark the end of her school days.
The Wicklow-born designer’s relationship with the nature-loving monarch goes back more than a decade, when he was appointed a special ambassador by the then Prince of Wales.
In the new Virgin Media series Living with Lucy, Gavin is filmed unpacking a delivery of three metal birds for a garden showpiece in his home, which is a “reminder of a job we did last year for the King”.
“We all met him,” he says, before whipping out his iPad to play a video from King Charles, wishing his daughter well: “… wishing you every possible success on your last day at school, what a relief!”
Over the weekend, Gavin bonds with Lucy Kennedy and opens up about fame, burnout, and the mercurial temperament that defined his younger years.
He also speaks movingly about the death of his brother, Conor, and his own near-drowning after diving into the surf on a Kerry beach during the filming of a show.
“It was all on camera,” he recalls. “I went into those waves – I love all that – and your man had put down his camera and got in the water because he was amazed at it.
“I discovered I couldn’t get back, and it was wild. He shouted at me, ‘Are you okay?’
“I put my hand up like that [for] help,” Gavin says, adding that the cameraman thought he was giving a thumbs-up.
“So he continued drying himself as he was walking away. He said, ‘swim sideways’. That was all I needed. I had a bit of strength left for a few strokes, and I was carried in. Otherwise…”
Asked what he was thinking, he paused before saying: “Isn’t this silly? Isn’t this silly?’”
Lucy moves in with Diarmuid and his wife Justine Keane at their stunning Wicklow home, uncovering the personal stories behind one of Irelands most recognisable faces.
In the show, the Chelsea Show winner admits he didn’t enjoy school. “I would have been regarded as conventionally dim; people didn’t think I had intelligence.
“School didn’t suit me, exams didn’t suit me. I had a belief in myself, so I didn’t really care – but certainly, nothing was expected of me.”
One of five children, Gavin recalls how his family’s lives were shattered by the sudden loss of his brother Conor.
“There was an accident when we were going to school one day – I was there,” he says quietly. “It’s hard to grow up with grief, and such extreme grief.
“I have to talk about it because Conor did live, and by all accounts, he was a little boy, a little brat, getting up to all sorts of tricks and no good. But he did live, and he was great.”
He says he grew up receiving a “huge amount of love” from his parents, but the tragedy coloured everything. Childhood was not great for me. I didn’t enjoy it.
“Everybody worried for me, how I was affected by it. And I wasn’t in a creative environment. I was in a studious, hard-working environment, so I didn’t fit, maybe at home, maybe in school. So it was all a challenge.”
In the Virgin Media series, he pays tribute to his “amazing parents” for carrying on through unimaginable grief.
“Mum is made of incredibly strong stuff, sometimes to her detriment. But dad… it was very tough. It was very tough on us all,” he said.
Lucy moves in with Diarmuid and his wife Justine Keane at their stunning Wicklow home, uncovering the personal stories behind one of Irelands most recognisable faces.
And he lights up when he talks about his late father’s joy in his success. “He revelled in it,” Gavin smiles.
The designer recalls visiting his father in his final days in Tallaght Hospital. “The nurse pointed to me and asked, ‘Who is that?’ Dad said, ‘our brightest star’,” he says, visibly moved.
His parents, he adds, were “amazed” he found his way. “They came everywhere, and all the parties – they were there.”
Finding his way also involved meeting his wife, Justine Keane, the daughter of the late journalist, Terry Keane, while he was working in her garden.
He remembers Terry with great affection. “She was utterly brilliant,” he says. “She was Terry Keane. She was a well-known journalist and gossip columnist, and fashion writer. But I tell you, she wasn’t only that.”
Living with Lucy continues this Sunday on Virgin Media Television with a revealing and heartfelt third episode
Behind the glamour, he says, there was a deep humanity. “She rang me one day and said, ‘I’m worried… I’m on my own and I think someone is living in the shed.”
When a friend went over to check it out, they did find signs of a homeless person living in the building. “Sean said, ‘Do you want me to put locks on it?’ She said, ‘No – if he needs the shed, he needs the shed.
“Down to Dunnes and she says, ‘Now, what was the newspaper I saw in there… that was the Telegraph, I think he’ll eat tuna’.
“She was unreal – naughty, brilliant, dangerous, mad, creative,” Gavin laughs. “I was digging the garden once, and Buzz Aldrin, the man who’d been on the moon, walked past, coming to dinner. It was everybody. The parties were wild – the most fun.”
His mother-in-law thought it was “hilarious” when he became a household name in England.
“One particular week, I had three different series in the top 10 on television, and I turned on the radio, and even before the news headlines, it was me on Radio 4.
“I heard my voice, and then I had a news story, because I had a row.”
Going back to his mother-in-law’s house that Saturday, she opened the door. “She looked at me and said, ‘Ah, the brat’.”
In a frank admission, he also tells Kennedy that his creativity was coupled with volatile outbursts in the past. It’s not pretty, and it’s very cutting and very cruel. I think.
“I would have to have minders, RTE would have to send executives to stand beside me. When I went to an awards show, somebody very high in the organisation was put beside me because my reputation was bad.
“It always came from somewhere, always for a reason, and that’s all years ago”, he says, adding he regrets those outbursts, “Yeah, because never good to be unkind to anybody, but my life wasn’t exactly stable.”
Gavin says he and his wife, Justine, have followed in her mother’s footsteps, opening their home to people in need – including a young Croatian man who lived with them for a year.
“Justine came from a family who always did that,” he says. “If you have a big house, the only value it has is being a good neighbour, being a good parent, and sharing it.”
These days, he says he loves getting older: “I love the fact that I don’t give a f**k anymore.”
Living with Lucy S7 with Diarmuid Gavin – airs tonight at 9pm on Virgin Media Play & Virgin Media One.
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