Quitting London: why I decided to ditch the capital

I can pinpoint the exact moment I fell completely out of love with London: I was on my usual 8:30ish train from Clapham Junction to work. I was squashed against the door so tightly that I could barely breathe and the train felt like a furnace, despite it being early January. Wishing I hadn’t worn so many layers when it was impossible to remove any in the crowded hellfire of a train, I was even more grumpy than usual thanks to my upstairs neighbours’ all-night screeching session from the night before. Just as we were pulling out of the station, the man packed tightly alongside me started to breathe heavily on the glass window of the door and proceeded to play noughts and crosses. On the glass. With his breath. By himself.

If the romance of working in the heart of the capital every day was still flickering with life at this point, it died a quick death that Monday morning with the condensation from that bloke’s breath inches away from my face. Of course, there were many other more important factors that had made my adoration of London falter, but for some reason this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I had decided to run away to London when I was a student whose blood consisted mainly of cheap Tesco own-brand gin. It was my birthday, my 23rd to be exact, and I’d finally returned home after a late night at university. I was coming to the end of my MA, so had no free time and, joy of joys, my birthday had fallen on a Monday – not exactly the night to trip the light fantastic. So, gin at home seemed a sombre, if not well-suited, celebration for a 23rd birthday. It wasn’t good. I think I even listened to ‘What’s my age again?’ by Blink 182 and started wailing at the lyrics…

23 is a weird age. Your mid-twenties seem like an age where you should have gotten your shit at least slightly together, but I had not. I was conscious that my uni life was ending soon, which felt like preparing to trip off a cliff and tumble down into the abyss. So what was a young British graduate to do when they wanted to seek fame, fortune, excitement and a job capable of paying the bills? Moving to London was an obvious rite of passage and in any case – I told myself as I sipped on my drink and wiped mascara off my face – if I didn’t do it now, when would I? I was young, footloose and fancy-free – it felt like a no-brainer.

This, of course, seems like the standard thing for a lot of new graduates or young people in the UK to do as they chase a career. According to the Office for National Statistics, more than 100,000 20-somethings bolt to the Big Smoke every year. This age group is the only one in which those arriving outnumber those leaving. If you’ve ever lived in London, the main reason will be all too obvious: cost of living (especially if you’re planning on buying a house and/or starting a family). But the numbers associated with this are still surprising, even if a mass exodus of the 30-plus population leaving London seems like the status quo – in the year to June 2015, the city of London lost 9 in every 1,000 residents to people moving to other parts of the UK. For comparison, the second fastest-shrinking area (Yorkshire and Humber), lost 0.4.

So, back to that train hurtling towards Waterloo: it wasn’t the first or even most ridiculous thing to be seen on a train in London (ask anyone who uses the public transport system on a daily basis and they will confirm). But as I was sprinting to work through the crowds, I couldn’t help but feel more irked by it than I usually would have been. And as the day went on, I realised why: the bits of my London life I’d found exciting before, like casually strolling to Borough Market for my lunch break or catching sight of the London Eye on my way to work had become, well… blah. Even when I was paying through the nose for my flat and having to deal with crazy commuting crowds, there had been a time when I felt such a buzz walking around knowing this was where I lived that it had felt worth it. But that had faded.

The honeymoon period had worn off and, even though I’d been there for years, I still felt like I was on the outside looking in. London was just a place I lived, not home.

Thankfully, my other half felt the same way – as a Wiltshire boy, he’d always felt a bit alienated by London in the first place. He’d never been a fan of crowds or commuting, and he’d become increasingly frustrated that our chances of getting on the property market there were slim or more likely none. When the flat beneath ours (2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, ground floor) was put on the market for a cool £1,000,000, I could have sworn he popped a capillary or five. With his recently-acquired new job came the chance of working from an office in Bristol, and with that an opportunity to move came knocking…

We’d been to Bristol a couple of times together and really liked it. It was exciting, but the pace of life was cool, calm and collected. It was a busy city, but people said hello when you popped to the shop or for a coffee. It had all of the creature comforts you’d expect from London (there was even a good old Pret, although, thankfully, not on every corner), but it also had charm and character. And I loved the local markets and businesses – Bristol, even though it was a city, felt like a community. That tied in with a growing job market, great lifestyle and, well, slightly more affordable houses. And we wanted in.

So, off we went. Of course, I won’t pretend for a minute that I flipped London the bird and never looked back. Emotional goodbyes with friends, colleagues and our local pub in Clapham made me question whether we were making the right decision. And there was some part of me which wondered whether I was admitting defeat by leaving. But with all of London’s failings, it had become tougher to admire. And of course, I realise we were lucky: we were leaving by choice. For some, this decision has been made for them, with London councils forcing homeless families to relocate to cheaper areas of the UK, some as far as Birmingham. By becoming an even more difficult place to forge an existence, London will miss out: it will lose important parts of its communities, locals, workers and new talent.

Even with all these negatives in play against our capital, Londoners of all kinds, even those long-suffering ones, will feel compelled to shake their heads at you in disbelief: just a few of the comments I had were “oof, I can’t imagine leaving London”, “aren’t you going to miss it? There’s nowhere like it!” and the old classic, “you know what they say, ‘when a man is tired of London, he’s tired of life'”. They really can’t contemplate life outside the big city and they aren’t wrong when they say there’s no place like it: London is equal-parts fickle and magical. But I will definitely appreciate it more on occasional visits than by living there.

Maybe London life was just never right for me. I’ve been living in Bristol for less than eight months now and it feels more like my home than London ever did. Moving to a new place is always scary of course, but I frequently swoon at how beautiful Bristol is, smile because the people are amazing and drool over the incredible food options here. The public transport leaves a lot to be desired (one of Bristol’s few faults as far as I’m aware), but whilst you may walk everywhere you won’t lose any weight because Bristol is truly a foodie’s paradise. I love my new life here and discovering new places to eat, drink and look around has become an obsession. Which I guess explains my compulsion to blog about it and to take endless photos of it.

I can only hope that in the years to come, I still feel this way about Bristol and its surrounding areas. And for any Londoners thinking of taking the plunge and leaving the capital in their rear-view mirror: believe me, accepting the need to move on can feel terrifying, especially when London has you caught in its riptide. But I did it. And I’m so glad because I’ve never been happier.

So long, London. You’ve been, well, an experience. I might even miss your hustle and bustle on occasion and yes, we did have some great times together. I still haven’t figured out if it’s me, or you… but, either way, it’s time to move on.