Gardeners’ World star Monty Don has opened up about the start of his relationship with his wife, Sarah Erskine
Abbie Bray Deputy editor for Screen Time
17:53, 08 Nov 2025
Gardening presenter Monty Don has previously revealed candid details about how his relationship with wife Sarah Erskine began whilst she was married to someone else. The BBC Gardeners’ World host met Sarah at Cambridge University and married her in 1983.
The couple now has three grown-up children and several grandchildren.
Monty proposed to Sarah on a remote Scottish island, and they subsequently registered their marriage in London.
“We got married in Finsbury Registry Office and then had this lunch in L’Escargot, and that was it, we never had a honeymoon,” Monty recalled during a 2023 appearance on the White Wine Question Time podcast.
He admitted, “I don’t think it was love at first sight. I think it was an intense attraction at first sight. Her husband was someone that I rode with and knew very well, and that was the case for about six months when I’d meet them socially,” reports the Express.
Monty described questioning: “‘Why did she cross paths with him before me? Why is the individual you feel magnetically attracted to with someone else?'”
Monty Don opened up the guilt he felt when he met his wife Sarah(Image: CHANNEL FOUR)READ MORE: Strictly pro ‘to miss’ Blackpool week as co-star makes quitting admissionREAD MORE: The Repair Shop expert bids farewell in an emotional tribute to co-stars ‘time has come’
He insisted he never intended to pursue another man’s wife and didn’t view the situation that way.
Sarah had married for the first time aged 19, and when her wealthy botanist husband embarked on a four-month field trip, she and Monty developed a closer friendship “in a completely platonic innocent way”. As their connection intensified, she confronted a challenging choice.
The Gardeners’ World presenter revealed: “You know that thing when you’re very attracted to somebody, you don’t go too close to them, or you don’t dare show too much interest or whatever. It turned out that we both felt the same way. But she was married to someone else, and so it was very difficult.”
Monty Don and his wife have three children(Image: Jeff Spicer, Getty Images)
Sarah made the decision to end her marriage, resulting in a “difficult, unhappy, tormented set-up”.
Monty explained: “She decided that she absolutely didn’t want to sort of have an affair. She chose me, and it was for about six months an extremely difficult, unhappy, tormented setup because he obviously was not very happy with that arrangement. He completely reasonably felt betrayed and very, very, very angry.”
Whilst Monty acknowledges experiencing some “a bit guilty” feelings about the situation with another man’s wife, he stands by his choices.
He remarked, “The point is I’ve always felt a bit guilty about it, but at the same time, there is a kind of ruthlessness.
“All is fair in love and war. You can’t pussyfoot about. If you decide to be with someone and it means breaking up their marriage, you can’t then say: ‘Oh, I feel really bad about this’.”
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