By Guardian columnist Fran Johnson
I WAS fed up of the rat race, the dreary commute, living in the armpits of sweaty businessmen on the 7.15 train, the tired cliche of unfriendly strangers rushing by without time to say ‘Hello’.
So I moved to the village of Heckwick-upon-Wold, near Doncaster. I traded in the converted garden shed in Peckham I’d paid £425,000 for and moved into a 10-bedroom mansion with stables and four indentured servants. Finally, I thought, a simpler way of life.
I bred chickens. I took up Morris dancing. I hosted a weekly coffee morning at the village hall. I grew so many vegetables that all my London friends would immediately say ‘F**k off, don’t tell me about the vegetables’ upon answering the phone.
But then it hit me. Apart from the rampant racism, this rural idyll was deadly dull. I missed London. I missed the ‘drill’ music everyone listens to and the four-hour traffic jams on a Tuesday that remind you it’s the most important place in the world.
So I moved back, trading in my mansion to live in a converted public toilet, now a £1.5 million studio flat in Lower Sydenham.
It was the best decision I ever made.
Until it was the worst.
I missed the coffee mornings, the village gossip, the friendly chats over the hedge about foreign thieves and rapists. I missed not being in an oppressively conformist white monoculture where everyone could have been played by Richard Briers or Felicity Kendall.
And so I headed back to Doncaster where I live now, leaving behind the soul-destroying hubbub of London and the cheques from the Guardian.
Although I suspect I might soon start missing London’s theatres and art galleries, its vibrant stabbing culture… well, you get the picture.
