....to think that retiring away from the city is bonkers?

[NewGrandmummy]

Inspired by another thread about moving away from London with small children, I wonder if anyone else has done as I have done, and actually moved back to London (or another major city) as preparation for retirement?

I truly don't understand the 'let's retire to the seaside/a rural smallholding/a tiny village' that seems to be in so many older people's minds. Why do that at a time of life when you will most likely have to give up driving at some point? How will you get to the supermarket/doctor/dentist/hospital/cinema/pub etc?

I'd love to hear from those who've moved out of London/a city for retirement and regretted it, or those who, like me, are moving towards civilisation (rather than away from it) as they get older.

My friends parents moved to the Lake District and it was beautiful but their village was tiny and not a lot going on and a lot of the houses were weekend pads so they didn’t get to know people really. 3 years later they’re up for sale!

YANBU, I've never understood the 'cottage in the country' retirement dream. I suppose it made sense when any village would have a pub, a grocery shop and a post office so it would be a place you could get what you needed in walking distance, but now it seems a recipe for isolation.

My ideal retirement spot is on or just off a High Street so everything's in shuffling distance should I have to spend years without being able to drive. In fact we live just off a high street now. I occasionally eye up spots and think 'Yes, I want to be somewhere like that when I retire' - usually ground floor flats with some garden access but still near a the high street.

Totally totally agree. I know a few people who’ve moved to lovely houses in the sticks when they retired. Each to their own but we’re staying put near everything we could possibly need and people we know. It’s busy, sometimes noisy, space is expensive but we can always jump on a metro / rer to the airport or take a train to the coast and go on holiday. We do need to finish the aircon though..

It’s weird. I get a sense of panic in rural remote places. The same as many do on the crowded tube! Maybe I am the weird one ;-)

Also I go to west end shows once or twice a month, and when I am retired I hope to go even more, if funds allow. It’s my absolute passion. That limits where I can live really!

That sounds great. Like where I grew up.

Haha no you’re not alone. We are townies!

Yep we live paris and we’re staying put, we’re lucky to have a garden and live opposite a park. The only thing was last summer’s heat which made me think twice for a minute.

Each to his own. I'm sure you'll have a lovely retirement. For myself, I'd rather shoot myself than live in or anywhere near London.
P.S. Other pockets of "civilisation" are available for those who are doubting their retirement choices after reading the post.

I'm with you OP. I come across alot of older people through my job that are stuck somewhere quiet, isolated and with minimal family support or totally reliant on someone else that drives because they no longer can. There is no way I'm going to put myself in that position.

Agree, love that my parents as they age, living in a town have a pavement to walk on to get to their local shop, an every 10 min bus service apart from Sundays, (and they are loving the free bus pass) and will hopefully keep their independence for as long as possible.

You’ve clearly struck gold but IMO so many lovely rural villages once out of the main part of the village are particularly lacking in pavements or roads that are not national speed limit, winding around farmers fields with blind corners everywhere, or the pavements are so uneven that once you begin to lose mobility they become a total death trap. A friends MIL lives rurally & to leave the house they have to go to get her, put her in their car to go anywhere. She can no longer walk to the shop/pub/chemist. It’s a shame because she’s probably a 10
mins walk from the sea but the paths are no longer suitable for her.

Christ I wouldn’t walk the roads round where some of the communities near where I live at night with a hi viz and a torch. Unrestricted speed limits and no pavements. Taxis are rare and no other options.

Have you read this book yet the town mouse and country mouse ?

'let's retire to the seaside/a rural smallholding/a tiny village'

There a massive difference between a village and a seaside town. Villages often have poor transport links. Ones near me only have one bus a day - and (weirdly) no return bus. But my seaside town has buses trains and taxis so transport is super easy.
Retirement is a way to live the life you want so if a small town by the sea feeds a person's soul then why not go for it?

I think a lot of us are talking at cross purposes when talking about a "village". The village where my mum lives has about 25 houses, a village hall and a school. There used to be a post office when I was little but it closed 35 years ago. No shop, no GP, no cafe.

That's very different from a "village" with 1000 houses, a Co-Op, station, GP and dentist, petrol station, takeaway etc etc.

And nowhere in London is a "village".

I live in a small village where you need a car to get out of it or the once-daily unreliable bus.

I also lived in London (Havering).

Obviously this is anecdotal but people in the village look out for each other.

We know the old man down the road lives alone and needs help sometimes, we know that the old couple in the bungalow is in a pickle because she's in a wheelchair and he has just had a new knee but they also have a dog who needs walking until he can recover, we know that the single woman living alone needs help moving the big heavy thing. Rupert is having chemo, his wife is driving him daily but she's not well herself, people ask them how it is going. The woman on the corner is fine living alone but she has lots and lots of meds and cannot get to the GP surgery alone to get them, so people ask if she needs anything picking up while they are going down there. People care for each others' kids, dogs and families... It's less of a "f*ck it not my problem" mindset here. We all pitch in. I know more about my neighbours here within the first year than I ever knew about my neighbours in London over ten years.

As a Londoner I disagree. My neighbourhood (and I’m sure it’s not the only one) has community facilities, residents who know and look out for each other, a gossip grapevine (for good and ill…), shop and cafe staff who have regulars and know them well, regular events put on by, contributed to and attended by the locals; all the things you’d associate with the word ‘village’.

But that's community you are talking about and you can have that anywhere, cities, towns or villages.

Village to me implies remote or semi-remote location, not many houses.

I disagree.

Some places are very insular and it’s impossible to make friends. I know I live in one of those places where people have lived there for 30 years and are still made to feel like outsiders.

Imo it’s much easier to find your community in a city than in a village. Unless ifc you somehow come from that village or it’s surrounding (so you’re moving back rather than move to)

And when (if) we get there, we might have to move somewhere less rural. We’ve just retired rurally, but it’s only 6 minutes to an A road, there’s a bus throughout the day at the bottom of the lane. We have neighbours a reasonable walk away (and an ATV). We are currently fit and well, so want to enjoy the lifestyle for at least 15 years, hopefully many more.

I suspect it depends on the location - there are small places here that I would tell incommers to avoid and others that would be welcoming

I feel like that when we go to an unfamiliar large city 😂

I live in the highlands, rural not in one of the major towns. A lot of people come up here to retire, I find it madness, I am eyeing up moving south as I dont want to grow old up here, it entirely relies on driving, poor healthcare options, poor caring options. I want to retire in a town.

That sounds lovely. And I agree, London is grim and I'm from there.

I wonder if part of it is that so much UK housing stock was built before people lived for so long, and often died of illness rather than old age? I always think it's interesting when people on MN are looking at houses and announce that they don't consider bedrooms on the ground floor to count as bedrooms. When we renovated, we deliberately put a very nice guest bedroom and bathroom on the ground floor with the thought it would be there if we, or a parent, needed it in the future.

We're in London, which other posters have very kindly referred to as a shithole, and actually love it with no plans to leave. We have a second home in a little coastal town and after a bit of time there, I'm always ready to get back to the bustle of the 'shithole'. Plenty of community and friends here.