Is the London exodus inevitable?

[Ant]

I've been here all my life, and the idea of living anywhere else seems odd. Could do with more space, mind you...

[david_carnell]

So if we could leave East Dulwich where it is, and its proximity to London, but if you head south, where Forest Hill or Crystal Palace used to be is now vast veldt and rolling Scottish hillsides with perhaps a caribbean beach in Norwood - we'll all be dandy.

[ratty]

It'[s about quality of life, and the quality of life I can afford in London is p1ss poor compared to the one I could afford elsewhere. So, it's adios within 3 years!

[PeckhamRose]

I was born hereand I passionately love London. I love the choices in London - including the CHOICE to do nothing when one is broke, but even a long walk can be fascinating and free.

I am lucky, no mortgage and cheap transport (motorcycle) (Westminster Parking charges notwithstanding!)

However, I am sad that my best friends are talking of "moving out" (GOD I love Billy Joel) because of the high cost of everything and their mortgage nightmares. And they're professionals in their 40s! (And what IS a key worker anyway! Certainly doesn't cover every important profession society needs to keep running.)

I totally and wholeheartedly agree with those who say avoid the Home Counties and so on.

If you're gonna get out, get way out.

But we'll miss you.

A friend of mine - indeed a guy I often work from home for - lives and works in a house in the High Pennines in Cumbria - nearest town is Alston. He has a generator for electricity and a satellite for his internet connection and telly. The house his closest neighbours live in can not be seen from his house. Now that is the only other option I would consider. Middle of London or Middle of Nowhere. No point anything in between! (Having said that, living there would still be a nightmare because to make that beautiful landscape you need lots and lots of rain!)

Seems to me the very people who are thinking of leaving London and even those who are talking of leaving the country are the very ones we need to get it back on its tracks. (But the same is true of schools and hospitals where those excellent nurses and teachers who are leaving those professions because their managers and the state in general doesn't value them and keeps issuing targets.) London doesn't value its Londoners!

[macroban]

I only intend to move to and downsize at Brenchley Gardens,

[jumpinjackflash]

haha - I grew up on that estate!

[lordship_bod]

i'm a born and bred londoner and have lived in london my entire life (even went to uni here) - however as i'm currently up the duff i cant help thinking that it would probably be nice to raise a family out of london. Mind you even if i wasnt up the duff i think i would think about leaving london in a few years anyway- as someone above has already posted its all about quality of life. In london I live to work, i cant help thinking that if i moved somewhere else (NOT the home counties) i might actually work to live... unless you are exceedingly well off i think its difficult to get that quality of life in london...

[macroban]

> that estate

That crematorium.

[jumpinjackflash]

You may not have a choice in the matter Macroban!

[Marmora Man]

I was born in Essex but brought up in N. London - a regular at the Childrens Exhibition at Earls Court, the Lord Mayor's Show, Royal Tournament, knew the tube system as it ran at the back of the garden. Lived in central London as a bachelor from 1972 to 1989 - then married and did the moving out thing 20 years ago. Job in the West Country beckoned so we sold off two London flats and bought a Devon longhouse and an acre.

The country is where, if you run out of milk it's a four mile trek and the shops are shut after 6 and Sundays. It's where if you have children everything requires parents to taxi them around. It's where the local shop has only sliced bread, some duff tomatoes and the petrol station acts as the local off licence with a range of wines all the way from Hardy's of Australia to boxed EU white. It's where, if you've lived there 25 years people start to notice you but you aren't a local yet cos' they've been there centuries.

I love the countryside to walk in, rest in, camp in, fish in, holiday in and look at. I returned to London 7 years ago, via the Midlands, to live in and love it still. Great city with all the good and bad that big city life brings. They may go - but many will return.

It's also a recession type thing - downsize to the country, keep chickens & pigs, eat organic, invent a Boden mail order life style. Yeah yeah yeah! 60% give up within 5 years.

[ClareC]

hmmm I grew up in North Kent so not a Londoner but only a stone's throw away. I have been in London for two years now and do love it, however, if I had children I wouldnt want to bring them up here so can understand why people move away.

The issue from my childless perspective is education.... I am not a fan of private/public schools, but, from what I have read / seen it would seem that the infant junior schools round here are great but the senior schools leave a lot to be desired unless you go private.

[????]

I lived in Spain - on the Costa de Crime (for work...*taps nose) for a year and believe me, the place is packed with brits who are desperately trying to convince you 'it's best thing i've ever done moving out here' in a very unconvincing way...you even get bored of the good weather

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Sorry Guys.Allow me to be the fly in the ointmentB)...I KNOW I'm missing something but can't think for the life of me what it is!..lol...Born 'n bred in the heart of Sarf London which was fantastic socially for my first 28 years,One day I got on the wrong train from Blackfriars in 1982 which whizzed passed the Elephant(6)..."Wheres the next stop?" I said "Bromley South!"...WHATTT!! Bleedin' Bromley South!!!....Anyway within 20 minutes I was there and that started the whole thought process.By May,1983 my Darling Angel of a Mum got on 3 buses from East Street Market then (at 65) had a long walk.Visited the house she saw advertised while I was in Rhodes,Greece and put down a ?250 deposit on the 3-Bedroom House."Hope you like it!"..she said.Loved it,although homesick at first(part of me still is 25 years later!)..Been a fantastic move-Half-A-Mile from South London Borders.Next to Danson Park(180 acres) just voted "Londons finest Park"..and within 6 miles of 17 seperate Parks/Meadows/Woods etc.Been very safe,apart from one nutter at a garage 12 years ago.Don't lock my car in the drive..A decent house can cost ?250,000-fair compared to "Inner London"...and within 18 mins Peckham--a little longer London Bridge/Charing Cross etc.10 mins Blackwall Tunnel to North and East London and 50 minutes from the Beach in Kent and 10/15 mins the other way to the heart of Kent.

p.s NO GOOD AT ALL for teenagers though....Enjoy London's diversity and never-ending choice and then slow down a tad by moving 6/7 miles-thats all it takes:)...Haven't been back to my Birthplace since,well..yesterday in fact:)

[Drxyster]

As George Bernard Shaw wrote, "IF YOU ARE TIRED OF LONDON YOU'RE TIRED OF LIFE".

[PeckhamRose]

An elderly man I used to work for, lives in Chelsea, and tried living in the country for 2 years in his late 60s. He came back saying "ALl there is in the country is the same road to get home via, and artifical insemination". He had a great view of life. And he also hated faxes and emails saying he preferred his urgent news to mature in the post.

He inspired me so, and he made me realise just how wonderful London even when you have no money.

[VeryBerryCherry]

I'm not so sure about it being so great when you have no money. I'm feeling like I'm on some sort of house arrest right now. It's difficult to move without flashing some cash. I have walked my little bunions off for free, but there's only so far these size 7s will get me for free!

Still love London however. It's a damn site better than where I'm from. God knows why the rentals moved from here to there! (!)

[indiepanda]

I've only lived in London for the last 15 months. Grew up in a dormitary town in SE Essex - which was crap - few facilities because so many people worked in London they just went out after work instead of locally. I went to university in Bath, which I really enjoyed, but there's nothing doing in my line of work there. Before moving to London I lived in Swindon and in a small town in Hampshire.

I had fancied the idea of living in London before but didn't fancy doing it till my salary would be enough I wouldn't have to live somewhere really rough. And I didn't want to have to commute while I was still doing my professional exams - time was precious then.

I'm glad I've made the move now, I was getting bored of being one of the only single people in town - think people settle down younger outside of London - less distractions! Plan to stay for sometime, but whether I would stay forever is another matter. As I've said before, I don't expect to have a family, so I haven't that incentive to move out. But I could see me moving back to Bath when I retired - property a bit cheaper, and I expect I am going to be less worried about having good gigs to go to when I am into my 60s.

[SteveT]

I came here from Derby and it's rugged countryside, via a two year stop over in Birmingham. When I arrived I moved into a rooming house, shared of course because of the cost and never looked back.

I suffered a few miserable lonely years of lots of work, and not enough pay, and then I went into a partnership, which was all work.

I suffered enough to know that you make money easier in London, than anywhere else on this island. I like it's anonymity it has a big city feel about it, where as Birmingham felt like a big Derby, not a small London.

The problem with moving out is, the people are so provincial, and I always return now with a sigh of relief. The more remote you live the harder it is to scratch out a living.

I have known many move out and most after a few years, yearn to be away from somewhere that the locals believe their's is the best, or only way of doing something.

The sting is trying to get back.

You find the property has risen so much you can only get an allotment shed, for the price of your palace in the country. You unwittingly burnt your boats, chasing your dream palace and garden in the sticks.

My eldest daughter went to Epsom to do her degree and she is very grateful that I originally moved to London, she really missed it and after her second year away moved back and travelled to uni only when forced.

I do not mind visiting the 'burbs' but I am a one hundred per cent townie, and if anyone thinks I'm upping and leaving this place, having made sacrifices to get in, not a chance;-)

London is the place to be if you are over 21 and single.

[VeryBerryCherry]

Whereabouts in Derby SteveT?

I'm from Burton near Derby.

Countryside = great

Town/City life = pramface central!

And spent 4 years in Brummieland too.

[Marmora Man]

As George Bernard Shaw wrote, "IF YOU ARE TIRED OF LONDON YOU'RE TIRED OF LIFE".

In fact Dr Samuel Johnson said it about 200 years before GBS came on the scene.

[HonaloochieB]

Marmora Man Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> As George Bernard Shaw wrote, "IF YOU ARE TIRED OF

> LONDON YOU'RE TIRED OF LIFE".

>

> In fact Dr Samuel Johnson said it about 200 years

> before GBS came on the scene.

Well read sort of chap that GBS, though, eh?

[HonaloochieB]

"Is that concrete all around, or is it in my head?"

All The Young Dudes - Mott The Hoople.

And then of course the writer of ATYD David Bowie;

"Like to take a cement fix, be a standing cinema"

Andy Warhol - David Bowie

Are these early 70s glam rockers, who were both quite different before and became quite different afterwards, not implying that the city is the place to be?

They don't mention London of course, but I think we can read between the syllables.

[blinder999]

London bye ta-ta

Strange young town

London bye ta-ta

brought me down

Don't like your new face

that's not nice

Got to go far, far

London bye ta-ta

[HonaloochieB]

blinder999 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> London bye ta-ta

> Strange young town

> London bye ta-ta

> brought me down

> Don't like your new face

> that's not nice

> Got to go far, far

> London bye ta-ta

>

This was surely, either during his Anthony Newley pre-fame phase, or during his 'I know I'll scarf so much cocaine that I'll maybe put holes in my brain' phase. Either way, not to be trusted. He weren't right.

[Huguenot]

I once wrote a very tedious treatise on 'William Morris and the Rural Idyll'.

Far from me to repeat it, but leaving the big smoke is a very deep rooted British cultural imperative.

It's like Bumbalina and the suntan. Out here in SEAsia a suntan is a symbol of agricultural work and the financial penury that goes with it. It's also freakin' hot, but everyone mainly avoids the sun because it's embarassing.

However in the 7 days before Bumba goes back to the UK or Canada she goes suntan crazy. It's a pathology, but rooted in the fact that in northern climes a suntan is a symbol of wealth and privelege (related to international travel in the 70s).

In post-industrial revolution Britain the rural idyll became a symbol of wealth and privelege, and that underlying conviction has never left us. Moving out of London is an imperative that demonstrates to our acquaintances that we've 'made it'. It proves that we've done our time in the cotton mill and made sufficient profit to back away from the Spinning Jenny.

Hence Marmora Man's exquisite (and wholly accurate) portrait of country life is neither here nor there. People will live in that kind of poo haunt in order to send a message. I have no familiarity with the factional 60% statisitic, but it stands to reason that if people are living in the sticks long enough for colleagues to become inured to the point being made, that the prodigals will have to come back to London in order to leave again.

It's interesting that for agricultural economies, such as France and Ireland (*ducks*) the cities are quite the opposite. They represent a cultural nursery, where people spend time to 'add value' to their existence. Where pampered Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote an 'Ode to the West Wind', the locals thought the persistent rain was a ball-ache and talked about going to the bright lights.

This thread was started by Strawbs who I seems to recall (probably incorrectly) being antipodean. I may be wrong, but it strikes me that someone from such a cultural backwater ;-) would naturally be confused by the yearning to leave London. However, you're not supposed to be thinking of your loss, you're supposed to be impressed and bask in the reflected glory.