To want to get far away from London?

[bluecherry1]

I have a very nice house with a great dh and 2 lovely dc, good jobs and no real worries BUT I live 2 streets away from one of the recent stabbings and it has put me so on edge, crimes rates here seem to be soaring, I hate not letting my children go out to play and don’t even feel totally safe myself walking the 10 minutes home from the station. I know there are nice places in England to live but me and dh are thinking of homeschooling the kids and travelling, we have family in Spain, South Africa and the USA, I want them to experience a carefree life for as long as they can. Ahhhh I’m so confused?

I would never leave London but this is your choice there is crime everywhere especially in the countries you mentioned

Just to point out as well that people see a black victim in the papers & definitely assume they were involved in gang activity or family members were. It could be that they happen to live in the area the gang is from or perhaps they did have criminal relatives but that doesn’t make themselves criminal.

For the millennials it's very different

I am not going to deny its very difficult for many younger people.
But the people buying family houses in this borough are not baby boomers. They are young couples.
This is not an area people retire to. Its urban and increasingly hipsterish.
Its couples in their 20s/30s buying up the houses previously deemed as 'crap holes'.

Bloke who bought house next door to mine is single and can't be more than late 20s.
Its possible that he is a mild mannered billionaire but I doubt it. If he was he would be living in Hampstead not the arse end of East London.

My niece and her OH have just bought a house very similar to mine. She is a teacher.

I think people forget that once mortgage / rent is paid London can be an incredibly cheap place to live. We just went on holiday and were paying £45 for every "attraction" as there was so little cheap / free stuff to do - and none of it available over the holiday period.

In London there are so many free options. I can just put my little guy on the back of my bike and head off on cycle paths to two huge parks, jump on the tube and go to any museum or gallery. We can go and hang out in parts of the city that we like. We don't need a car to be citizens, which is the most freeing thing ever. Our friends live within walking distance or max a short bus ride away.

We live on one London average wage and just make it stretch.

London construction is mainly staffed by Romanians now

I've come across people in construction from many groups (white British, British Asian, Polish, Chinese, Bulgarian, Ukrainian...) but can honestly say I've not met a Romanian construction worker here (Hackney).

Er I'll take previous posters' word on the construction industry. It's not a subject I raised I just don't come across many Romanians in day to day life

My partner is an electrician and whilst there are lots of Eastern Europeans in the construction industry there are a huge amount of Australians and New Zealander's especially plumbers, electricians and carpenters.

Currently having my loft done and just had my living room decorated and my bathroom done.

No romanians!

London has some very obvious downsides but it also has some less obvious upsides.

Its more tolerant, helped by a high proportion of graduates (you only have to look at the Brexit stats to see the connection between education and tolerance).

Its also more tolerant simply because different people (both ethnically and socio-economically) have to live cheek by jowl, with the vast majority using public transport.
The local schools are more likely to have a mixed demographic because from one street to the next, the people who live locally differ.

Land is more expensive, its far harder to live in a sealed off estate with its own village school and driving your comfy car to work, in London.

We visit Yorkshire and Cornwall regularly to visit family. I love the clean air, the convenience, the green spaces etc.
I could do without the casual racism, anti-Polish sentiments and comments about 'benefit scroungers' though. The fact that none of it might be directed at me doesn't make it any better.

We left Hackney 10 years ago for a zone 4 suburb in a different bit of London. We had various practical reasons for doing so, but the final nails in the coffin were a) hearing gunshots several evenings in a row from our living room and b) me witnessing a woman being stabbed and mugged for her handbag in broad daylight on the way back from collecting DS from nursery.

Me & DH both grew up in quite ‘rough’ areas of London and a bit of crime and grime didn’t bother us much until we had our first child. It started to unsettle me far more then.

We like where we live now, although I would personally leave London if it was practical (it isn’t and DH would never leave anyway). My reasons for wanting to leave aren’t linked to crime rates, though. It’s the cost of property and the cost of living. We’ll never have the sort of house we want in London.

Oh my word.

Wanting to move to the USA or South Africa to avoid crime. Wtf?

We’ll never have the sort of house we want in London.

Ain’t that the truth!

Why do these threads always turn into countryside bashing when the OP hasn't even mentioned going somewhere rural? Most of the UK (and MN presumably) manage to live neither in London nor the back of beyond but find somewhere in the middle. Even if fields and suburbs are your idea of hell, surely you have the imagination to think that maybe Edinburgh, Bath, Bristol, Newcastle, York, Glasgow, Cardiff.... might not be cultural wastelands. This London vs fields thing is really strange, it's like someone saying "I don't like cheese," and replying "well, I love cheese and I can't stand the idea of living off cornflakes," like the two are sides of a single coin instead of two extreme options on a very wide spectrum.

OP, I think that the crime and hostile feel of the place are the result of inequality and only going to worsen over the next decade. I wouldn't do something as extreme as home educate in Spain (unless you've always considered it, I mean not as a knee jerk reaction) or move to a country with a much higher crime rate (SA, USA) - can you list the things you love about London and the things you want to change, the restrictions from family or jobs or budget and we will suggest places that might fit for you?

They turn into London-bashing threads too LetsSplash, people saying they can’t imagine why anyone would want to live somewhere so dirty/busy/crime-ridden etc. Plus most big cities have similar busyness/crime etc issues to London, London just seems worse because it’s bigger/the capital city. So if your issues are with crime/chaos then it seems natural to me that people would want to go in completely the opposite direction and live somewhere much more rural.

I don’t think OP meant “home educate in Spain”, I think she meant that she wants to home ed with the opportunity of going on holiday whenever she fancies without being restricted by school holidays and the accompanying price hikes.

I actually think people have mostly missed the homeschooling issue. If you homeschool, your child isn’t going to be in a room with other children for six hours a day five days a week, and you have to search out clubs and other ways for your DC to meet others. In a city this is much easier due to the population and available resources, you’re more likely to find a homeschooling community you can join. If you move to somewhere more isolated/rural, it will be harder, you will have to travel further to meet other children and there may not be any nearby homeschoolers.

I have to say this so called idyll of fields,village,sleepy village makes me feel nauseous and claustrophobic
I’m not drawn to that in the least,the muddy boots and ruddy cheeks palaver
Give me a city any day.Noise, bustle,edge,vibrancy.rather than same ol thing

I agree Lipstick. I enjoy the mental stimulation of living somewhere with a lot on, being stuck in the countryside just wouldn't do it for me. I get bored just staying in the countryside for a week... there are only so many walks you can go on and National Trust properties you can visit, they all become much of a muchness after a while.
If country living is your ideal, then go ahead and live there, that's fine. Unlike many of the London-bashers I can understand why some would want to live in the countryside!
FWIW I wouldn't mind any other city eg Edinburgh, Liverpool, wherever...

I don't yearn for that middle of nowhere thing either but I think most Londoners who like the hustle and bustle of city life and what it has to offer could buy a beautiful house in the centre another big city in the UK. City life doesn't have to be London City life.

Well op - your idea sounds grand.

This whole London is the centre of the universe thing is crap. Who the feck would trade the security of their family for increased cultural capital - if that’s your fear. I can only assume they live in a lower crime area.

I’m from London and we moved out two years ago (divorce) and I don’t really give a feck about so called decreased access to multiculturalism. We never got much out of it as we are a multi ethnic / faith family. We take it where we go.

Where I live now has less access to cultural events (theatre/arts) but property is cheaper and I actually go out with pals, and do radical things like eat out and sometimes go to theatre - just like i did in the big metropolis. And just like in London I still live in a safe area.

Actually, upon realising I was going for a divorce my first instinct was to get one way tickets to Brazil (wish I had) - big world out there beyond London guys - OP if London right now is not doing it for you your idea sounds an amazing opportinity for your kids ie all the travel. Not sure if these so called big city people could do what you are thinking.

Ensure you can do it and you feel your lives would be safer/more exciting than what you have now.

There is a big world outside London, that's true.
There is a big world outside of Colchester, Trafford, Padstow and Glasgow but no-one gets sneered at for being happy to stay in any of those places.

I have to say howrude, All that spitty blurting about how shit London is and how amazing your life is and how thick everyone who stays in London is sounds a bit like you are trying to convince yourself as much as us.

All this talk about London being full of culture and not being able to bear being stuck in the Country as there's nothing to do. Needing it busy and needing things to do bla bla.

So, any Londoners...what's a typical week in your life like? What is it that means only London can fulfil your needs? Presumably you're out every evening at galleries and museums, soaking up all that culture...not going home, cooking dinner and going to bed like the rest of us? 😁

Because I do not do well somewhere with little going on, surrounded by fields of sheep or whatever.
When I was on a year abroad for my university course, I lived somewhere with very little to do. It drove me insane. I could pay for a ticket to go to Berlin by train but they were expensive, I couldn’t afford to go every weekend. I spent the vast majority of my time stuck in my bedroom, watching a lot of DVDs. I had limited internet which ran out too fast.
Sure, I don’t go out much, but I like living somewhere where there is at least the option. Call me extreme but I do get bored just staying in the countryside for a week’s holiday, where you have to drive for ages to even get to a decently sized supermarket. I have always thrived best in a busy environment, with a lot going on. Being stuck somewhere with little going on would just feel like being in limbo. I need the mental stimulation.

As I said before in this thread, the worst holiday I’ve ever been on was when i went to the Lake District ten years ago, it rained every single day and my father was ill and spent a lot of time asleep. There was another time when I went to Somerset with family and my father had to go home a couple of times that week, the weather was also shit, the highlight of the week was whenever we went to the big Tesco about twenty minutes’ drive away.
If the weather is rubbish, there is little you can do in the countryside, there is nothing worse than going on a long walk in the pouring rain. At least in a bigger town/city there are more options when the weather is terrible.

And I wouldn't mind any other city eg Edinburgh or Bristol or Liverpool or Leeds or wherever. I'm not London or nowhere.

I have always thrived best in a busy environment, with a lot going on. Being stuck somewhere with little going on would just feel like being in limbo. I need the mental stimulation

So people keep saying, in various ways.

I don't understand though. So like I said...this 'busy environment', much needed to maintain your mental stimulation...what is it? What are you doing every day?

Fair enough, I don't do much. As I said in my post. I could do more, yes. But I like having the option of stuff to do. It doesn't make much sense, I agree, most introverts would love nothing more than to live in isolation. It'd drive me crazy, though.
I explained in my post that I lived somewhere with little to do for a year, and it bored me to tears.
I can't really explain myself properly, I know it makes little sense.
But when a friend came to visit me a few years ago, specifically to visit London, we went out every single day for hours and went somewhere different each day. Sometimes we went to a museum/art gallery, sometimes we just sat in a park for a while.

So maybe my problem is that, when left entirely to my own devices, I don't do very much. It takes being invited out by someone else to get me motivated to go out.