‘It simply felt like the responsible thing to do’

Simon and Isabel live together in Saltaire, a Unesco World Heritage Site on the edge of Bradford. Simon, 74, is a professor emeritus at the local university, while Isabel, 21, is an Illustration graduate now working in the gallery at Salt’s Mill, a colossal Victorian edifice where Titus Salt once spun a small fortune out of alpaca wool.

Simon was driven to share his home by a sense of social responsibility. He says: “It simply felt like the responsible thing to do. If you’ve got the space, then why not share it?”

Isabel, meanwhile, wanted to be closer to her workplace and to live more sociably with a housemate. “I didn’t like the individualistic style of living at university, with everybody doing their own thing. I like cooking and eating with Simon. It’s nice. It makes sense,” she explains.

Talk of cooking prompts Simon to recall an episode of “lumpy polenta”, which he is yet to forgive himself for. “Though on a positive note,” says Simon. “I have managed to convert Isabel to custard.”

By way of thanks, Isabel has converted Simon to reality TV. “I absolutely hate The Traitors. But I got a decent haiku out of Ru Paul’s Drag Race,” says Simon.

For Isabel, the money-saving aspect has been a big boost. “I only get a shop wage, pretty much the minimum, but because I’m spending hundreds of pounds less on rent each month, I’m actually able to save,” she says.

While Simon worried that his early mornings – a side effect of Parkinson’s – might be a disturbance for his lodger, Isabel says this has not been an issue and, if it had, she would have said so.

“If a homeshare is going to work out it’s vital that neither party suffers in silence,” she says. “If there is a problem, you’ve got to say something.”

The experience has made Simon very enthusiastic about homesharing. “I think it should be rolled out as part of local authority policy. Not enforced, not required, but promoted at least. All these half-empty houses, and people alone, and people priced out of decent accommodation – it’s ridiculous.”