‘It’s easy to be part of the community; I know more about those around me’
Harriet Evans, 47
‘I’m a born and bred Londoner. Apart from three years at university in Bristol, I’d never lived anywhere else. But my mum is from Bath so I knew the area a bit from holidays with my grandparents, and my extended family on Mum’s side are here.
“I don’t believe that to make the big move you have to fall out of love with the old place. I will never not love London; I just couldn’t cope with living there any more. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel safe, it was the constant level of stress.
“You know when you see people talking about the places they live on property shows and they always really love them? I never felt like that about Islington. We were very lucky, and we had a nice house, but all the time I kept thinking this isn’t where I want my kids to grow up and it isn’t where I feel at home. I never felt I was in a place where people were putting down roots.
“But it wasn’t a straightforward decision. My partner, Chris, would happily have stayed, but for me it became about security, what we wanted for our daughters, how much we were paying for our mortgage and the life we could be living if we didn’t live in London.
“I did have to persuade him that Bath was the right place. In the end he got on the train with his bike and came down on his own. He went on a really long bike ride, went into local shops and met people, and when he came back, he said, ‘What a great place.’
“We just decided to do it and went for it, which is so uncharacteristic for me – but it worked out really well. We moved in Christmas 2019.
“Our house sale took longer than expected, so we decided to rent in the area we wanted to live in and delay buying. It’s a very British thing to think you have to buy, but it’s really freeing to step off that carousel. Also, Bath is the wild west of property and everyone wants the same houses, so we can’t afford to buy the house we want here either!
“I love how contained Bath is: it’s a city but I can see hills out of my window. And there’s only one of everything; two at the most. There’s a swimming pool, there’s a nice place to get coffee, and if something’s new everyone knows about it. It’s easy to be part of the community here. I’ve become more open to things and I know more about the people who live around me.
“Here, everything isn’t about work. You can just have a chat with someone about the weather, or their dog, or that new pizza place in town without asking them what they do and I really like that. Most of all I really like they idea that if you live here, on the whole, you really like living here.
“If I were here in 20, 40 years time I’d be happy as a sandboy, because apart from anything else I see all the over-70s who are extremely fit and living a nice life. That doesn’t seem like a bad outcome to me.”