Rat race avec différence

by Catherine Chetwynd
13 Dec 2004

For Brits, moving abroad doesn't necessarily mean having to give up your old life completely, argues Catherine Chetwynd

Balmy weather, excellent food, sympathetic neighbours and life without stress. This sounds like the Utopic vision of some hapless soul stuck on a train delayed because of leaves on the line. In fact, it is the lifestyle of Brits who have taken the plunge and moved to the Continent and who commute to the UK to work. With Eurostar, ferries and numerous airline services (budget and otherwise), this is now a realistic option and those who are doing it have no regrets.

Financial adviser Peter Elias and his wife Bridget were living in Fleet, Hampshire, and driving round the M25 to work in Kent and Sussex. 'We had to be out of the house by 6am to miss the traffic and were not getting home until 8pm, when we would settle down to pick up office e-mails,' he says. 'Our quality of life was non-existent and we started to think about living somewhere.' They looked at Ireland, Scotland and Portugal. 'But we got better value for money and better quality of life by going to France.'

They moved to Paizet le Tort in Poitou-Charentes between Poitiers and La Rochelle, but Elias admits: 'It was more luck than judgment where we ended up.' The house was the deciding factor. 'It was much bigger than we wanted but we could not resist. We love it to bits,' he says.

Peter Elias commuted for a year and enjoyed the journey but he and Bridget became so set on their lifestyle in France, they wanted to leave their ties with England. Bridget made the complete move to France first and Peter followed suit three years ago. Commuting is reasonable, according to Elias. A three-hour drive to St Malo allows him to catch an overnight ferry or there is a good choice of low-cost and other services from La Rochelle and Poitiers to London Stansted with Ryanair; or from Bordeaux and Nantes to Southampton, Stansted, Bristol, East Midlands, Birmingham and London Gatwick with (variously) BMI, Flybe, KLM/Air France and GB Airways.

Then, in 2001, Peter and Bridget Elias set up Allez Français, acting as an intermediary between French estate agents and the British buying public.

'It is less stressful and pressurised in France, despite running our own business. If things went wrong, we would go somewhere else rather than back to England.'

And if the success of their business is anything to go by, there are plenty of Brits looking to move to that region alone. 'About 50% of our customers are looking to move here permanently and many of those buying a holiday home expect to retire here and hope to bring their retirement forward,' he says.

Also fed up with a stressful lifestyle and overcrowded Britain, Justin Saunders traded a two-bedroom cottage in the south of England for a manor house with swimming pool, better weather and a commute to the UK from Toulouse. 'Our children were three and one and it was a good time to go because we had no ties in the UK. At seven and five, they are now bilingual and are growing up in an environment that is like England was 50 years ago. We don't have to worry about safety,' he says.

Saunders is technical director and co-founder of eMapSite.com, which provides internet mapping services for businesses through a Platinum Partnership with OS. At first, commuting was expensive but now that he can book three months ahead, he flies with easyJet for £38 return to London Gatwick.

He spends 10 days in England before returning to France for four days. 'I leave work at 3pm on a Thursday, getting home at 9pm, and I return on Tuesday morning. The children know when I am going to be there and I can spend quality time with my family,' says Saunders. 'The business has grown in the past four years, so I might be in a position to do more from France by this time next year.'

Saunders and his wife wanted to be far enough south to have good weather but to be close enough for him to be able to fly to the UK. 'Southern France was very attractive to us,' he says. 'Some parts of Spain are like middle England, the community does not mix with the locals. The people and the quality of life here are a big bonus. It is easy to make friends and they are more sincere and less materialistic. Our children go to the local school and we are part of the community.'

Cosmopolitan

It is possible to improve quality of life even from the Channel Islands, according to Susie de Carteret, who moved to Jersey when she got married two years ago. De Carteret is an account director at McCluskey PR and commutes two days a week, working from home the rest of the time. 'I live 10 minutes from the airport and check in at 6.35am for a 7am flight into London Gatwick with Flybe or to London City with VLM,' she says. 'By leaving the office at 5.30pm, I can be home by 9pm.

'I would not have stayed in London for the rest of my life and I was beginning to question quality of life there after 17. Now I live on the beach and wake up to the sound of the sea on the shore every day. I do not miss London. Jersey is cosmopolitan and La Rocque, on the south-east coast, is sophisticated.'

However, not everyone is fleeing the country. European balance sheet controller for Citibank, Derek Guildford, commutes from Hassocks, just north of Brighton, to Docklands every day and does not feel his quality of life is compromised. 'The Brighton line is quite fast,' he says. 'It shoots through and stops only at East Croydon and London Bridge. From there, I get the Jubilee line to Docklands.'

He spends the journey reading or sleeping but there is quite a social life on the train for regulars. 'Some people have created a card school and are always playing bridge, others have a chess club - they invited me to join them.'

Guildford does not take the same train every day and says the main benefit to him is reading time. 'I certainly would not read as much if I worked at home,' he says. 'Most of the time the services get in within three minutes of the scheduled time and I get a seat unless I am travelling in the rush hour.'

Former residents are not the only people who recognise that Britain's south-east is overcrowded. Kent County Council and Eurotunnel have started working on plans to encourage some 10,000 families to move to the Calais area and commute to work through the tunnel, according to articles on BBC News and Guardian Unlimited websites. The idea was conceived in response to the Government's announcement that it will build hundreds of thousands of houses in the south-east by 2021. So much for the Garden of Eden. However, the proposal hinges on whether Eurotunnel is able to reduce return fares between Ashford and Lille from £60 to around £15.

For those who have left the UK, the reduced stress levels and increased quality of life have made the decision without doubt the right thing to do - c'est évident, as they say in France.

Catherine Chetwynd is a freelance journalist specialising in business travel, conference, incentive and exhibition writing. She also writes for The Times and the Financial Times.