JULIE MONTAGU may be the future Countess of Sandwich and star of reality TV show Ladies of London, but her life has been as challenging as it is charmed. She talks to Catherine O’Brien about the medical mistake that left her husband bedridden and how she became the family breadwinner

‘It’s been hard and painful and I wouldn’t wish what we have been through on anyone. But it has been the making not the breaking of us, ' said Julie Montagu

Julie Montagu drives a 13-year-old red Mini, but most of the time the car sits idle outside her home in Southwest London.

As a yoga instructor, nutrition expert and all-round health guru, she prefers to cycle everywhere.

But not so long ago, when her normally sunny disposition was overshadowed by a family crisis, the car became briefly useful – as a place in which to hide her tears.

It was, Julie recalls, Christmas time. Her husband Luke was in bed, ‘too ill to even fake it’.

Julie had wrapped all the presents for their four children and prepared a festive lunch, but suddenly on Christmas morning, a sickening wave of panic and despair washed over her.

‘Everyone thinks of me as someone who always holds it together, but in that moment, I lost it,’ she says.

‘I was shaking and howling and I thought, “I can’t let the children see me like this.”

'So I ran out to the car, rolled myself up in a ball and convinced myself I was having a nervous breakdown.

'That was how Luke found me – hysterical. He took me in his arms and rocked me like a baby. He was crying, too. That was truly our rock bottom.’

Luke’s medication was never a secret between him and Julie. ‘I always knew about it and to begin with it didn’t ring alarm bells. So many Americans are on pharmaceutical drugs that it didn’t seem a big deal,' she said

Today, Julie is sitting before me with her equilibrium restored.

At 42, she exudes high energy and has a megawatt smile and, on paper, much of her life reads like a modern-day fairy tale.

Luke, her husband of 12 years, is, she tells me dreamily, ‘the perfect gentleman’.

This is true, not just in demeanour, but in terms of his noble heritage. As Viscount Hinchingbrooke, he is heir to the Earl of Sandwich – a title that, among other things, has enabled Julie to build a sideline career as a star of the reality TV show Ladies of London.

Next month, Luke and Julie will take over the running of Mapperton in Dorset, the exquisite Jacobean family pile described by Country Life as the finest manor house in England. Theirs would appear to be a world gilded by privilege, with a prosperous and comfortable future assured.

The true picture is rather different. The family crisis that floored Julie that Christmas in 2010 stemmed from the catastrophic consequences of Luke being mistreated with prescription drugs.

Following poor medical advice, which ultimately resulted in a £1.35 million legal settlement, he was unable to work, drive or even, on many days, get out of bed.

It was three months before Julie realised Luke wasn’t plain Mr Montagu. ‘I caught sight of his credit card and said, “Hang on, who is this Viscount Hinchingbrooke?” And he said, “We have a lot to talk about”'

Racked by pain from nerve damage and mental anguish from a brain fog that often made him incapable of putting a sentence together, he was dependent on Julie, who became his carer, champion and the family breadwinner.

‘It’s been hard and painful and I wouldn’t wish what we have been through on anyone,’ Julie says. ‘But it has been the making not the breaking of us, and for that reason, I wouldn’t change a thing.’

An American, raised amid the cornfields of rural Illinois, Julie could never have envisaged that she would end up adopting the name of one of Britain’s oldest aristocratic families – she is officially Viscountess Hinchingbrooke and will one day be the Countess of Sandwich – but she does strike you instantly as someone adept at coping with life’s curveballs.

The daughter of a self-made businessman father and stay-at-home mother, she puts her go-getting, cheerleader disposition down to being the middle of five children.

‘The others were paired off, and then there was me. You can either think “that sucks”, or seize the opportunity to do your own thing.’

Julie had wanted her ‘thing’ to be journalism, but her father persuaded her that business was better. She studied computer science – ‘I was the blonde among the geeks’ – and ended up riding the dotcom wave, which brought her to London in her late 20s.

Shortly afterwards, her first marriage, from which she has two children, Emma, 17, and Jack, 14, broke down.

Her ex went back to the U.S.; she stayed in London and segued into a career in TV production. In 2003, she met Luke at a party.

There were a few cultural clashes, says Julie, ‘but he was the kindest, cleverest, most honourable man I’d ever met’.

Luke, who had studied film at Columbia University in New York City and gone on to found the Metropolitan Film School in London (where the advisory board now includes directors Sir Alan Parker and Stephen Frears), was also refreshingly understated.

It was three months before Julie realised he wasn’t plain Mr Montagu.

Julie with her husband Luke, the future Earl of Sandwich, in the grounds of Mapperton

‘I caught sight of his credit card and said, “Hang on, who is this Viscount Hinchingbrooke?” And he said, “We have a lot to talk about.” I pronounced “viscount” like “discount” – I had no idea.’

Soon after that, Luke (whose ancestor the fourth Earl of Sandwich gave his name to the popular lunch staple) took her to Mapperton – ‘He’d told me his parents had a house that was kind of nice,’ she says with a roll of her hazel eyes – and in 2004 they were married there, with Julie wearing the family tiara.

Luke embraced Emma and Jack as his own and by 2007, the births of William, now 11, and Nestor, nine, had completed their family.

They visited Luke’s parents at Mapperton, which is set in 15 acres of glorious grounds, but home was – and still is – a much less grand end-of-terrace in London with scuffed skirting boards and a postage-stamp-sized garden.

‘This is our normal,’ Julie says, patting the well-worn sofa.

‘We don’t have a nanny, my children get the bus to school and I’ve never spent more than £200 on a dress.’

Julie and Luke come across as the most contented and grounded of couples.

On the morning we meet Julie is in her yoga kit and Luke, who pops in to say a quick ‘hi’ between fielding phone calls, looks relaxed in jeans and a shirt.

But bubbling under the surface are the repercussions of Luke’s long-standing health battle that has taken them to hell and back.

The root of the saga can be traced to when Luke, now 46, was 19 and had a routine sinus operation from which he struggled to recover.

After several weeks of headaches and feeling out of sorts, he consulted a GP, who diagnosed a chemical imbalance in the brain.

This, he now realises, was a medical myth – the more probable explanation was that he had suffered an adverse reaction to the anaesthetic. But he was prescribed antidepressants and became hooked on them.

Throughout his 20s, he saw other doctors who chopped and changed his medication – he started on Prozac but took a variety of other antidepressants – and every time he tried to stop, the withdrawal symptoms, which included dizziness, insomnia and extreme anxiety, would force him back on to the tablets.

Eventually, the sleeping pill clonazepam was added to his daily cocktail and he became addicted to that as well.

‘He’d told me his parents had a house that was kind of nice,’ she said of Mapperton. In 2004 she and Luke were married there, with Julie wearing the family tiara

Luke’s medication was never a secret between him and Julie.

‘I always knew about it and to begin with it didn’t ring alarm bells,’ she says. ‘So many Americans are on pharmaceutical drugs that it didn’t seem a big deal.’

But by 2009, Luke had resolved that enough was enough – he was becoming more tired and forgetful and was desperate to end his reliance on medication. ‘He would try to taper his dosages, but then he would feel worse.

'He did some research and realised he was just like a junkie craving his fix,’ says Julie.

She went with Luke to see a psychiatrist, who suggested that he should admit himself to an addictions clinic to manage his withdrawal.

The first night Luke checked in, staff at the clinic took his clonazepam away, but unbeknown to them both, the doctor treating him had made a grave error – long-term users of sleeping pills need to be weaned off over months or even years.

‘That was the beginning of the hell,’ Julie says. ‘I remember visiting Luke the following day and he was a completely different person.

'He couldn’t think straight. He said it felt as though he had had a lobotomy. His ears were ringing, everything was blurry and he was sobbing and writhing in agony.’

Not understanding why he was so unwell, but knowing something had gone dreadfully wrong, Luke discharged himself within a week.

Too terrified to take even a paracetamol for the severe pain he was experiencing, he retreated to his bed and remained there for months.

‘Every day, I would ask him if he felt better, and every day he would say the pain was worse.

'All I wanted to do was lie there and hold him, but when you have four children, that’s not an option,’ Julie says.

To begin with, she muddled through. She told the children, who were aged between ten and two at the time, that ‘Daddy’s got bad flu’.

When other psychiatrists advised that it could be between five and ten years before Luke felt back to normal, she gave them a fuller explanation.

‘The children were fine, but some of their friends’ parents weren’t,’ she says.

‘You could see them recoiling. To them, Luke was a crazy addict and they didn’t want their children hanging out with people like us.’

Luke did manage to wean himself off the antidepressants that he had been taking alongside the sleeping tablets, which meant that after a few months he was at last drug-free, but he had to relinquish his role running the film school.

His parents provided them with some financial support, but Mapperton costs £200,000 a year to run and, like many 21st-century aristocrats, the Montagus are asset-rich but cash-poor. Without the income from Luke’s salary, Julie realised she needed to find work. But an office job that took her out of the house for ten hours a day was out of the question.

Luke and Julie will soon take over the running of Mapperton in Dorset, the exquisite Jacobean family pile described by Country Life as the finest manor house in England

There was one aspect of her life that kept her sane: yoga.

‘I’d started doing classes after Nestor was born – with four children, I’d needed to find that time out to free my mind,’ says Julie.

‘And after Luke got ill, it became the only thing that made me feel good about myself.’ She completed a yoga teaching course and printed off flyers advertising classes in a local church hall.

‘I pushed them through hundreds of letterboxes, even the ones that said “no junk mail” because I thought, “this isn’t junk – you need yoga,”’ she says.

To begin with, she made £50 a week, ‘and then it was £100. Then I got some private bookings at £40 an hour, and before I knew it, I was bringing in up to £300 a week.’

Teaching yoga didn’t just generate an income and enable Julie to clear her head, it introduced her to a whole new holistic world of living.

Through her classes, she met a nutritionist who explained the benefits of removing refined sugars and processed foods from her diet.

Eager to expand her expertise, she completed an online nutrition course followed by another specialist programme in plant-based foods.

Out went shop-bought breakfast cereals and meals high in saturated fats, cholesterol and salt; in came homemade granola, superfood smoothies and delicious recipes for the whole family, such as sweet potato falafels and three-bean spicy chilli.

‘I knew that changing the food I ate was improving my mood and energy levels, and if it could do that for me, then perhaps it could do it for Luke as well,’ says Julie.

There was a breakthrough in 2012 when Luke offered to help her set up a food blog.

‘Several people at my yoga classes were asking me to upload my recipes, but the photos I took were rubbish.

Luke was still largely housebound, but he suddenly saw a way he could contribute. As a filmmaker, he could produce the images – he even completed an online food photography course. And that was the start of everything turning around for us.’

Julie’s blog The Flexi Foodie has become a phenomenon. Fast-forward four years and she is now a one-woman nutrition and lifestyle brand with her own DVD, a range of healthy snacks called JUB (Julie’s Unbelievable Balls) and a bestselling cookbook Superfoods.

Her second book Eat Real Food will be published next month.

Meanwhile, word of her yoga classes spread like wildfire and she now teaches at the uber-fashionable Triyoga in Chelsea. Eighty people at a time pack into her classes, and there is always a waiting list.

Last year’s Ladies of London line-up (clockwise from back left): Marissa Hermer, Julie, Noelle Reno, Juliet Angus, Caroline Stanbury and Annabelle Neilson

Then there is the recognition she has gained through starring in Ladies of London, made by the U.S. network Bravo, which follows the lives and loves of seven supposedly posh, affluent women, including former model Caprice Bourret, businesswoman Caroline Stanbury, fashion entrepreneur Noelle Reno and model and socialite Annabelle Neilson, and is shown in the UK on ITVBe. Julie has loved the fun of filming, but she’s far from swept away by the fantasy.

‘There are two reasons why you would agree to reality TV. One, you want to become famous, and two, you want to promote your business. For me, it’s number two,’ she says bluntly.

‘I did it for the money and I said to Bravo that if I was going to be part of it, it had to be my reality.

'If you’ve seen me on the show, you’ll know I turn up to lunch in trainers and that there are no family heirlooms in my hallway.’

Viewers will not have heard Julie discussing Luke’s illness on camera – ‘I always felt it was his story to share, in his own time,’ she says.

But now Luke, who has aided his recovery with mindfulness, meditation and yoga, is gradually feeling better and is speaking publicly.

He recently co-founded the Council for Evidence-Based Psychiatry (cepuk.org), a campaign group that highlights the harm that can be caused by psychiatric drugs.

As Julie and I finish our interview, Luke joins us. ‘Let’s not gloss over this, the past few years have been really hard,’ he says.

‘I haven’t been the person Julie married, and I’m still not. When you are in constant pain, it doesn’t take much to make you agitated. But Julie has done an astonishing job of keeping us going.’

‘Every day he hugs me and says how much he appreciates me,’ Julie adds, giving his hand a squeeze.

As he rebuilds his life, Luke has rejoined the board of the Metropolitan Film School, but his main focus this year is going to be taking over the management of Mapperton from his parents John (the current Earl) and Caroline, who are both in their early 70s and have decided to retire to a coach house in the grounds.

The main house is now run as a historic visitor centre and weddings and events venue, and the challenge is to maintain it as a viable business.

Julie will split her time between London and Dorset and has agreed to take charge of the gift shop.

She also has plans to turn one of the stable blocks into a yoga studio and may look at adding some of her own recipes to the café menu.

But any friends hoping for invitations to lavish parties will have a long wait.

‘I’m not interested in being a lady of the manor,’ she says. ‘What matters to me is not the fancy stuff – it’s having a happy home for my family and helping my husband get back to feeling his brilliant best.’

juliemontagu.com

Julie’s new book Eat Real Food: Simple Rules for Health, Happiness and Unstoppable Energy will be published by Hay House on Tuesday, price £10.99.