Monty Don growing out of trouble

Did any of you watch the program last night 7pm BBC2 about Monty Don and his quest to help young drug users find a way out of their trouble using gardening as a therapy?

I sat there riveted with a mix of emotions from pity through to sympathy and anger.

On the one hand these young people are selfish and lazy and only seem to be intent on living a life of crime to service their lifestyle but looking deeper into their personalities it is possible to feel the despair and loneliness that they must be feeling.

Addiction to anything I am sure is an overpowering demon but an addiction coupled with a lack of hope and in many cases stable family relationships seems insurmountable.

Monty Don had a budget or £100,000 to spend in finding a 6 acre plot of land in Herefordshire to teach young drug addicts how to work the land in an effort to change their lives.

I really wanted to believe that the people on this program wanted to be saved from what we perceived as hell but deep down I got the feeling that they felt safe in their hazy world.

There were little or no rules in their lives and Monty Don gave them that 10 minutes of Fame acting as a father figure. The child came out in their personalities and they looked up and at Monty for that feeling of achievement that so sadly they did not feel in their home environment.

There were so many facets to the program I found it difficult to actually understand who might have been saving who. Monty Don has had a difficult life it seems and the revelations of glue sniffing and shop lifting were surprising. Whatever next, Alan Titchmarsh will reveal shortly that he has not returned eight library books and one of those actually dates from January 2006!

No seriously was Monty Don on a mission to save himself, better his career of genuinely seeking to help? He certainly dug his heels into the ground when the lightweights refused his scheme permission to set up in their back yard and eventually after 7-8 false starts found a plot.

Tune in next week and see what horticulture does for these young people as the soil is turned for the first time.

Visit Monty Don's Project website