Are the British Ripe For Revolution?

[Robert]

Lot's of holistic simplifiers in this country as well. The Northwest Region comes to mind.

Three million burnt-out Britons abandon their high-flying careers in a search for the good life
By Cahal Milmo
31 December 2003


Nearly a quarter of British men work more hours than the European legal limit. Half of all British workers think that their job damages their health and one-fifth say they are too exhausted to have sex.

Such is the drudgery of life in the British workplace that next year 200,000 people will follow in the footsteps of one City trader, who surrendered a six-figure salary this year to become a magician, and "downshift". This will bring to three million - or 10 per cent of the working population - the total number of people who have swapped the urban rat race for a rural idyll or abandoned high-flying careers by demanding to work fewer hours, a study by the market research organisation Datamonitor has found.

Defying claims in the mid-1990s that the initial flurry of downshifters would prove a temporary fad, the number is expected to reach nearly four million by 2007.

Experts say downshifting has become a Europe-wide trend driven by the recognition of "time" as a commodity just as valuable as the latest Mercedes or digital gadgetry.

Dominik Nosalik, a consumer markets analyst for Datamonitor, said: "It is something which is growing steadily and will continue to do so next year. Three million people is a significant part of the population.

"It is driven by time and people wanting the energy for things that they can't do working the hours that they do. There is an increased lack of willingness to put up with the long-hours culture across Europe in general and the UK in particular.

"After spending years striving for material wealth in the shape of a house and car, people are saying they need to change their lifestyle and are happy to 'pay' for it by means of accepting a lower income."

According to the research, there are now some 12 million downshifters across Europe, an increase of nearly a third in the past six years. By 2007, the figure is likely to reach more than 16 million as the population of the European Union, its affluence increased by economic growth, seeks to escape the sense of burn-out.

Of those who have already sought a less onerous existence, around two million are what demographers call "holistic simplifiers" - people who have gone the whole hog by selling their homes or cashing in their nest eggs to set up a new life elsewhere, preferably in locations as far away as possible from the stresses and clutter of urban life such as the Outer Hebrides or Sicilian orange groves.

The Datamonitor research found that the majority of the "holistic simplifiers", who are concerned for the environment and are "spiritually orientated", come from highly paid and stressful jobs such as the law, IT or financial services. Many are in their 30s, want to focus more on their family life and are ready to contemplate any steps, including emigrating, to achieve their aims of self-sufficiency.

David Elkins, 39, and his wife Carolyn, 37, moved to Carmarthenshire four years ago to escape the difficulties created by David's IT work in London and set up a small-holding with their three children.

Carolyn, who runs a website for smallholders and downshifters, acountrylife.com, said: "Our ambition throughout all of this was to be free of the mortgage and live an existence where, perhaps, we do not rely on regular employment at all. Unfortunately, with the house prices in the UK this means looking further afield to achieve our dreams. We recently sold our smallholding with plans to live in Canada - a land which offers beautiful scenery and cheap land."

Holistic simplifiers have become the focus of the downshifting movement, with a flood of television documentaries showing families battling adversity in the olive groves of Umbria or beside the salmon streams of Wales to realise their dreams.

But such a drastic change of lifestyle does not come cheap. One property consultant in the West Country, one of the most favoured UK destinations for downshifters, said: "You are talking about people with minimum resources of £250,000 and most have an awful lot more. A lot of people setting up down here have been earning upwards of £60,000 for a long period of time. They buy something cheaper and sink the equity into their new life - whether it is living the good life with a few chickens or spinning pots with a view of the Welsh mountains. It is splendid but it is very much a luxury for the few who can afford it."

The majority of downshifters - some 75 per cent - are people who remain in their current location as well as their jobs and instead want to spend less time shackled to their desks. Judy Jones, co-author of Downshifting: The Guide to Happier and Simpler Living, said: "It is slightly unfortunate that downshifting has been confused with the whole town and country debate.

"There is no prerequisite that you have to sell everything and move to another country. Most people do it rather more modestly - they ask for a reduction in their hours or move to a less stressful post.

"It is also not right to draw a class distinction. I think there is a universal yearning for a simpler way of life across all classes and income groups and it isn't only wealthy professionals who achieve it."

Increasing awareness of the success of downshifters, either through word of mouth or television programmes such as No Going Back on Channel 4 or the BBC's Escape to the Country, mean more people will downshift and do so earlier. A recent survey for a building society found that 49 per cent of those aged under 50 are planning to pay off their mortgage early and opt for a more leisurely existence. Four in 10 of these people are under 36.

Coupled with another study by the GMB trade union this week which showed that three million men, nearly a quarter of the male working population, spend more than 49 hours a week at work (in excess of the legal maximum elsewhere in the European Union), experts say it is no surprise that people are looking for a means of escape. Mr Nosalik said: "People have this feeling of a quickening of the pace of life - the internet and mobile phone mean they are never out of reach, they are bombarded with advertising and they work long hours. The notion of a quieter existence therefore becomes more and more tempting."

But downshifting comes with a health warning. One recent study on homeworking found that far from allowing staff to work fewer hours, half found they were working longer. And, as one former City worker now running a café in Cornwall put it: "I work much harder for much longer for much less cash. I get up at 5.30am five days a week and am in bed by 10pm.

"But I enjoy it and at least I feel I'm being more useful to society by selling muffins than being paid to watch billions wiped off pension funds."

HOW ONE FAMILY ESCAPED FROM THE SOUTH-EAST

For Rob and Fran Hall, life in the village of Ellingstring in the outer reaches of North Yorkshire could not be more different from their previous existence. "We needed to move away from the belief that everything revolved around money," said Fran. Rob added: "Now everything revolves around sausages."

Mr Hall, 33, breeds rare pigs, selling the surplus for meat, and keeps sheep, goats and chickens. Mrs Hall teaches at a primary school in Leeds, 42 miles away, and helps to milk the goats before school in summer, their peak production period.

For 13 years the family lived in Lancing, on the outskirts of Brighton. Mrs Hall, 41, commuted into London to teach, while her husband worked as an electronics engineer at a local firm. But eventually office politics and "stress-related management schemes" led them to re-assess their priorities and move to the village near the town of Masham.

"We realised that the whole of South-east England is too congested to breathe," said Mrs Hall. Both her husband and their youngest daughter, Amber, eight, have stopped relying on inhalers as their asthma has been alleviated by the pure Yorkshire air.

Mrs Hall said she could not believe how much her life has been transformed. "The whole world turned upside-down. Here it is dark at night, so you can see the stars in the sky. And there are men around in the day, rather than being shut up in offices. It's a small community, and the first I have experienced where people really care about each other."

However, all is not fun and laughter in the Halls' version of The Good Life. Mr Hall describes it as "the biggest learning curve I have ever gone through, far harder than university". This summer, hailstones from a mini-tornado shredded their entire vegetable crop, making for a meagre harvest. Their children missed their old friends when they first moved.

Yet Mr Hall believes that the benefits of their lifestyle are most dramatic for their children; Hazel, 16, Rowan, 15, Holly, 14, and Amber. "They have a freedom and knowledge of the world that would be impossible elsewhere, as they see the raw edge of life: birth, death and the entire spectrum of experience. We still go to supermarkets, but the children can appreciate where the food comes from."

Their dreams for the new year are a far cry from sifting through the dregs of the winter sales to find the last bargains. Mr and Mrs Hall are hoping to increase their rare-breed pig stock, and expand their business selling home-made honey from outlets including the village shop.

Genevieve Roberts