So fed up with my life

[onandon8]

I live in London and am just so fed up with the people, the busyness, the noise, the pollution and the cost of everything, particularly housing. It’s really getting me down.

I want to sell up and buy a cottage by the sea in Devon or Cornwall, but DH will only consider counties close to London as there are always employment opportunities here.

I know what he’s saying but I don’t want to carry on with the rat race for the rest of our lives, living in an average area with a massive mortgage to pay each month.

I also read threads on here saying London schools are the best, and wonder in which part of London these posters live? Primaries near us are good/outstanding but the secondaries are dire - I can’t consign my DC to a life of that.

I would love to send them private but we don’t have anywhere near that kind of money. All the local private schools offer bursaries, but surely they must be inundated with applicants - does anyone know how easy it is to get one?

AIBU to want to leave London behind and have a different, simpler life in a small seaside town, with a mortgage of about £400-£500 per month?

I grew up in London (went to uni there and worked in the city for a few years after). I then moved to a small very pretty seaside village in Devon with my dh (he had grown up there and moved to London for uni). We now have 3 children. I had a creative job in London and had loads of amazing opportunities in the few years that I worked there- there are no opportunities for what I did in Devon. My dh earns well in a professional job so I can be a sahm but I have friends who work and quite often the jobs they have are seasonal and they struggle in the winter (gift shops, holiday let cleaning etc). There are really lovely things about where we live but I do have to drive the children everywhere and there isn’t a huge amount for them to do where we are and there really aren’t much job prospects for them here. We live near a town by the sea and there is a lot of youth drug problems and violence. We have a lot of the things on your list (we have a three bedroom house less than a minutes walk from the beach with outside space- it did cost considerably more than 320k though) but my children definitely aren’t any better off than anyone else’s though

I live in Kent and if family wasn't a consideration we'd move to Dorset.

@onandon8 Hi OP. Have you looked at Maldon, Heybridge, Burnham on Crouch, Tollesbury, Maningtree and Dedham? They could be the middle ground that would work for both of you.

Cardiff edinburgh and glasgow are all cities with graphic design work close enough to commute from small coastal villages.
I’m not sure the sw of England will give you what you both need.

I don't think you can stay where you are, whatever happens, but maybe being somewhere with a direct train to London needs to be at the top of the list. If you enjoy your next move and love living near the sea, then you can aim to retire in a Cornish village and run a holiday let when your dc have flown the nest?

It is not now or never, stepping stones are a good idea, and then you can test out what works without ruining your income opportunities.

How old are your dc?

The lockdown might be contributing to your feeling fed up too. Don't rush to commit to anything until it is carefully thought through.

@thepeopleversuswork

I can't think of any teenager who likes to spend their days doing coastal walks and looking at scenery.

I can't stress enough that being a teenager in the countryside is in most ways a far poorer option than in a town. People vastly vastly underestimate how difficult it can be and gloss over it all in a haze of wanting to be in the fresh air etc. I think outcomes for teenagers are significantly worse.

I grew up in a very leafy, affluent home counties town and the levels of drug taking and delinquency among teenagers was really high. I didn't realise until I left (for bigger cities) how bad it was. I know anecdotally in quieter places it is even higher. My friends who lived in London were shocked at the debauchery levels which went on. Did you know what the heroin capital of the UK is? Hereford.

Because teenagers in decent sized towns have things to do: they have sports, clubs, cinemas, bands they can join, hobbies they can do, decent restaurants, cafes, lots of diversity -- people they can hang out with if they don't gel with the people next door. And if your skin is a different colour or your accent is different or, god forbid, you are gay, you will be absorbed or at worst tolerated. You won't be ark

If you're in a very small town and you don't fit in life is properly bleak. People tend to be more narrow minded and insular. If you're the sort of person who rubs along well this is all fine. If your face doesn't fit and if you've just moved down from London it may take some adjustment it could be really tough.

That's not to say growing up in a small town is always grim or that your kids are destined to fall in with the wrong crowd. But in my observation the chances are much higher.

I wouldn't do it. Mainly for this reason.

@thepeopleversuswork do you have a link for Hereford being the heroin capital of the UK? I've looked and can see it's highest for drink and drug driving offences, which is obviously very different. Blackpool and various other coastal towns seem to come top in the heroin deaths stats.

Hereford is a city and also has a cinema, leisure centre, shopping, skate park etc so I'm not sure it's a great example of a place full of bored rural youths!

@DimidDavilby

Cornwall is full. Please consider staying where you are from/returning to your hometown.

I really don't see why living in Cornwall would be a better future for teenage / young adult DC.
I'd personally assume is would be the exact opposite.

They'll leave as soon as they get the chance. DH probably will too and you'll be stuck in Cornwall

WorryWartOne

I tell a lie: that was based mainly on a series of stories I read about County Lines drug networks from a year or so ago. I also happen to know anecdotally through a former friend.

But I've found some ONS data which is interesting and basically backs up my theory. The town with by far the highest level of drug misuse deaths in the UK is Blackpool (which is unsurprising). And there are some predictable areas of deprivation (Port Talbot). But about half of these are rural seaside towns or areas:

Thanet
Bournemouth
Eastbourne
Barrow-in-Furness
Scarborough

None of the major UK conurbations are on the list, unless you exclude some of the Liverpool or Swansea satellite towns. And Reading has one of the highest levels in the UK.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/halfofheroinmorphinemisusedeathhotspotsinenglandandwalesareseasidelocations/2018-04-04

So basically if you don't want your child to get into drugs, don't move to a seaside town, particularly one which is deprived.

So basically if you don't want your child to get into drugs, don't move to a seaside town

But most kids who live in seaside towns don’t do drugs. And what about the gang culture in London?

And, from the ONS blurb that accompanied the data:

Six of the 10 local authority districts in England and Wales with the highest rates of heroin- and/or morphine-misuse deaths are coastal holiday resorts, figures have revealed.

Places that may have been more synonymous with family holidays are among the 10 areas that saw the highest rates of drugs misuse fatalities where heroin and/or morphine were mentioned on the death certificate.

Some of the 10 places also have high levels of deprivation, which could link to increased drug use."

Interestingly my area of London is quite a bit lower than places like Hastings for deaths from drugs. But Hastings feels so much safer as an area!

onandon8

"But most kids who live in seaside towns don’t do drugs. And what about the gang culture in London?"

most kids in seaside towns don't do drugs. But statistically they are much more likely to do so than kids in big cities, as the ONS data shows.

The "gang culture" in London is a red herring and it makes me really angry when people trot this out.

Gang culture in London is a limited problem largely restricted to very deprived areas and only to a small sub-section of those deprived areas. Middle class parents, of the type who go on about the gang culture, have no exposure to it whatsoever. Their kids are far more likely to be hit by a bus than they are to become involved in a gang.

onandon8 it depends what you mean by "safer". You may be less likely to get mugged at knifepoint in Hastings. But your kids are more likely to get into heroin.

Swings and roundabouts.

My broader point is that the rural idyll is not a solution and seaside towns are much more problematic than people who live in big cities realise.

Gang culture in London is a limited problem largely restricted to very deprived areas

But I do live in a very deprived area and my kids will go to school in one if we stay in London.

Whilst of course not all teens in seaside towns are on drugs, it's indicative that it's probably quite a boring place for them to be.

I agree that gang culture in London is quite specific...I have a bame ds in a state secondary in London...he has no knowledge, contact or interest in gangs...we are a relatively mc, family who live on a nice, slightly suburban road. I think a lot of the gang stuff is linked to deprivation, social housing and parental disinterest tbh. It's an absolutely alien concept to my ds.

Whilst of course not all teens in seaside towns are on drugs, it's indicative that it's probably quite a boring place for them to be.

But those stats don’t mention age do they? (unless I’ve missed it). It could be people in their 40s and 50s who are taking the drugs.

But that is reassuring @formerbabe, I hope if we’re still in London my kids will be the same.

onandon8

"But I do live in a very deprived area and my kids will go to school in one if we stay in London."

Kids who get drawn into gangs in London are overwhelmingly those kids from deprived backgrounds and those where there are challenging family issues. Not exclusively. But there's a reason those gangs target children from challenging backgrounds. You're clearly from a fairly middle class stable family. This isn't to say your kids are inoculated from this. But your kids are not the sorts of kids which gangs target for recruitment.

The risk of your child, in a town like Hastings or equivalent, being bored, aimless and without enough to do or enough role models of ambitious people doing interesting challenging things, or just feeling alienated and without a "tribe" is much higher IMHO. And throw into the mix the much higher levels of drug use -- don't forget dealers deliberately target those sorts of towns...

I would take the odds of London over Hastings every time to be honest.

Well that's definitely food for thought. I personally find city living totally exhausting, but I just want the best for my kids at the end of the day. Don't we all.

There is an outstanding secondary school though in one of the places I'm looking, which is a draw.

I'm from Devon and I get what you're thinking. My mum grew up in Enfield and her parents made the move when she was 14. It was a rough transition for her and although there are some decent schools theres not a great deal of choice. It's too far to go back easily to see friends etc which is tough as well.

And theres a lot of deprivation and problems here too it's just got a postcard picture to it. For instance my rural country town is a haven for cross county drug stuff but you wouldnt know it at first.

It's not seaside but have you considered Canterbury? It's got a similar feel to south west towns and is closer to the sea and the city.

We did this. Our careers have suffered and we earn a lot less, but our quality of life has improved massively. We now have a LIFE, and don't just exist to pay the mortgage. Would never move back in a million years!

@onandon8 our children's quality of life was one of the things that drove us to move far far away from London. We also lived in an area where gangs were a problem and I wanted to get them out of there before they realised what was going on around them. So I really understand your desire to live somewhere nicer. Is your DH a graphic designer? I'm sure he would be able to work remotely. And you could find something as long as you're not fussy or driven by career progression? Honestly it's fine and doable. London is lovely and exciting when you're young and/or child-free, but you start noticing all the bad bits when you're walking around with a toddler.. I can't even imagine how stressful it must feel now during covid 😕