Can we as an Asian family move to a rural area?

[discopisco]

Just that really. We're currently living in London and are both of Indian parentage. DH has been grumbling about hating the rat race for a while now but I've ignored him (I'm from a small mill town from the north and couldn't wait to get out of there). However, we've just had our first baby and I feel like we're already outgrowing our 2 bed flat. To buy a bigger place in our current area isn't financially possible now or in the near future just on DH's salary. So, I've been looking at property prices where we'd want to move to (close but not too close to where I grew up) and we'd be able to afford a very big house there. However, my worry is racism. I grew up somewhere where there was a very clear white vs Asian divide which resulted in subsequent riots. Would we be mad to move to the rural outskirts of those areas? I love London- despite its many failings- and don't want to be isolated location wise if we were to move or have bricks thrown into our windows, be ostracised in the local area and our child bullied at school. Are my worries justified or am I being paranoid?

There are lots of pros of moving:

Family links
Familiarity
Lots of house for our money
Greenery

Cons:

Potential (most definite?) racism
Crappy schools (we'd probably have to go private)
Potential drop in DHs salary
Missing out on London life and all it has to offer

Would it be worth moving considering the above? Or should we stay out?

Part of me says to keep hold of our flat as once we move out of London we'd never be able to afford to move back but the other half says to go and live our life as best as we can while we can. Would appreciate any help, advice, guidance!

Have you considered just moving a bit further out? I am in outer London in a 25% hindu area for example and lots of other asians too and horses bg by on my road, wood opposite but veyr ethnically mixed and we are still on the tube into London.

I don't think mst people in the UK are racist however. I am from NE England and Northumberland is only 3% non white but I never heard anything racist said. My white grand mother had worked in India ( as a servant) in the 1920s and I never heard anything said against people of other races. In rural Northumberland and Devon for that matter what I see more than in London is a bigger class difference not colour - that the posh people seem posher and the less well off separate whereas we all seem to mix more in London.

If you move to rurally your children may have no jobs ultimately so it might be worth sticking with at least within the M25 - perhaps go out to Hertfordshire if he really wants the country and get the fast trains into London from there.

Sorry I just read the first post again and to get the lovely big house you want you would move well away from London to a rural area presumably somewhere like the Peak District or North Yorks Moors with Leeds and Manchester the big cities around.

I am much more concerned for your family's income than concerned about racism. I would think most of all about where your husband can work, whether there are jobs for you if you ever had to get back to work and where you want your children to settle and if they can get jobs there which of course they might - I have a sibling who works in Leeds.

I’m a white immigrant living in the NE of England.

I wouldn’t advise you to move where I am.
Racism was there before but more ‘covered’. The recent political mayhem has made things worse.

Most people where I am wouod also think there is no issue with racism as such btw. They just don’t always realise how hurtful some little comments are. Like when someone is asking you, not where you are coming from but what is your passport.... or how there is so little diversity in schools and the general population.

I suspect OP you would be finding it a shock.

My advice wouod be to stick to bigger towns and even then to stick to the town centres of those towns. This is where you will experience the least issue with racism and close mindedness

Mayhem
My dh wasn’t born here either. European white. The day after the vote the amount of people, who asked him at work when he was going home was phenomenal. He’s got white skin and Western European so not even considered one of those stealing people’s jobs.

He is now British directly due to Brexit. I do agree a lot has come out of the woodwork.

I was flabbergasted when a family member in their 40’s chose to move a certain area of the country to be around white people. I’m the dissenting remainer btw.

I think a lot of people are in denial about institutionalised racism.

www.theguardian.com/society/2004/jan/28/raceintheuk.raceequality

I thought Hanif Kureishi and Andrea Levy’s contributions were very interesting.

I live in a village with a population of about 400, an Indian chap moved into the village last year and was welcomed (it's a very friendly village). His house is now up for sale because he can't stand it here after growing up in Leicester. I think if you enjoy city living you would find it hard to adjust to rural life whatever the other factors are.

xenia interesting how, living in a very similar area than me, your experience is so different...

Ive hear racist comments before.
Think ‘I’m not racist buuut....’
Or ‘what was the point of her going to get married to an Asian. Her mum must be gutted’ (talking about someone who was getting married - they were also invited to the wedding!!)

I thought this was brilliant - reposting so later joiners see it:

Today 08:26 silvercuckoo

Its also sad that because we don't live in london its obviously assumed were all backwards racist knob heads.
It's not that. Let me try to explain with numbers.
Let's assume that in London 1% of population are knob head racists, and in the Smallville the percentage is 2% (I am making the numbers up, obviously). On surface and from the statistical perspective, it looks like there is not much difference - only 1 additional "racist" person per 100. Similar stats as to the crime rate or drug use, for example, hardly would scare anyone away from Smallville.
However, people on the receiving end of racist behaviour are exclusive targets. If London has 20 potential targets out of the same 100 people, and Smallville has 2, it means that a targeted Londoner gets 5% of an single knobhead's attention, while Smallville can boast a 1-to-1 ratio. So, from the personal perspective, it is 20 times "worse" in Smallville.

Rachlover

Chelsfield village ?

@MaisyPops

I'm a professional and have faced covert racism living in London. I dread to think how pronounced that would be elsewhere around the country.
Between this, other suggestions that racism is rife in the crumbling ruins beyond the M25, crap schools etc why not just stay in London? You clearly don't think very much of the rest of the country if you 'dread' considering what us non London folk are like.
Sorry, but I never get this thinking when people move out of London as it has a touch of 'I don't love London, but London has all of this and is wonderful and the rest of the UK must be poor, racist, poorly educated, full of crime etc'.

Maisy, can you really not understand why someone who has experienced racism in multicultural London may have concerns about potentially experiencing it in more rural areas which are significantly less mulricultural?

It's frightening that you're a teacher.

However my sister reports her boys coming home and asking questions such as "why is my skin colour different to Jacob/Joshua/Reece's (made up names)?" and other questions pertaining to ethnicity.

That's not a negative thing though. My kids were brought up in London and had lots of questions when they first met a Sikh boy at school. The London area that we lived in was very white and my kids hadn't met anyone Sikh. It is very normal to notice differences and unrealistic to expect a child not to notice stuff like skin colour, a wheelchair, glasses or whatever.

I can't comment on the areas that you're interested in it have you made a visit since growing up there? Things may be different (?)

We must have posted at the same time and the opposite. I may just be influenced by my very non racist parents and very pro-India parents - my doctor father obviously worked with a lot of indian doctors and also my Catholic primary school where the ethos was love everyone and lots of racial mixing and acceptance.

Anyway my general point was there are bigger issues with moving to the back of beyond than this - most of all money and opportunities, schools etc.

I live in a village in the East Midlands, we have neighbours of Indian heritage who have raised their family here and now live in a multi generation household. They along with other ethnic minority families are very much part of the community.

Actually I was in the city in the NE, not the country in terms of where we lived although I don't think any of the people I know in deep rural northumberland , farmers etc have ever said anything racist in front of me, they just tend to want to be isolated and alone up there which of course suits a certainly personality. I love my own company too.

I’d second pp saying have you looked at Skipton? There’s more going on there than Clitheroe, good schools and, I think, quite multi racial. I live the Yorkshire side of Skipton and although I hear racist comments about Bradford I’ve never heard any about the locally living people of Asian heritage. Some of the local villages are pretty insular and hard to be accepted in if your great great great great grandparents and everyone since haven’t lived there, regardless of race, but the market towns ( even the “posh” towns) are fine.

As a kid of two first generation immigrant Indian parents, I'm so glad they didn't force us to be 'Indian' in any sense of the word and just let us grow up in England without any silly trying to keep the 'culture' nonsense.

It helps that I have parents who see life in a very simple way - find what you're good at and what you like and live to develop that.

As such we lived in all white area and never had a single problem with integration ourselves. So other than a few silly kids who I told to piss off because on reflection, their family life was probably not as supportive as mine, it was a non issue.

I always think people who make any sort of deal our of nationality or culture are strange - whether it be English, Spanish, American, indian, Chinese - whatever. What does it matter? People round the world all have the same fundamental issues to do with trying to live a happy life.

If you decide to move, move to the best place you can afford. I find that only in council estates you will get bricks thrown into your window.

Saying that I'd let the flat and rent first to test the water. You won't lose much because let in London would more than cover private rent elsewhere.

I always think people who make any sort of deal our of nationality or culture are strange - whether it be English, Spanish, American, indian, Chinese - whatever. What does it matter? People round the world all have the same fundamental issues to do with trying to live a happy life.

Because there are many low class vermin in the UK who are just pure ignorant.

OP why not rent for six months to a year and rent out your London place. Then you’ll keep hold of the London property and get a good feel for your potential new location

yesyes' view is a good one for anyone considering a move to the country - rent your flat for 6 months and rent in the area you might move to and see how it goes.

Oops Sorry just saw pp suggesting the same

I don't understand why you're considering an area with crappy schools just so you can have a bigger house. tbh I think you need to work out what you want from a move because it doesn't sound as though you're ready to move out of the city. (I couldn't move to a rural location. I'm very much a city person so I'm not criticising you for that).

If it's about the DCs having more space then surely it's also important they have good schools? Your focus on the size of the house is 'odd' I think. A move should be about more - it's about lifestyle, community, schools. You're worried about racism and you don't rate the schools. A bigger house isn't going to balance that for you. This isn't the right move just now. Stay in the city, get into a routine with your new baby - congratulations! And give yourself a year (or even two) to visit different rural areas and see if any can offer you more than just a big house.

donedeal, your parents chose differently, but I don’t think it’s in the least ‘silly’ to want to pass on your home culture, or elements of it, to your children. Or that blending in should be the price of not experiencing racism.

"Low class vermin"

Its not just a class issue. You can be upper class and racist too.

And honestly, who with a job, not to mention school-age children, can seriously manage to nip off and spend six months in a different part of the country deciding whether you like it or not? Letting out your London place would be the least of your problems.

@bedhair to be fair to them they did pass on the good bits.

Strong academic ethic, not to be wasteful, the basics of learning multiple languages and some decent recipes. The rest is utterly unimportant. Thanks to them I could live in any country in the world and find common ground with anyone.