IMAGINE being able to see the sea from the kitchen door of your 16th-century rectory. Imagine picking tomatoes for lunch from your own kitchen garden, while your two-year-old child roams free through your acre of land. Imagine all of this without a mortgage, or responsibility for anything except keeping the garden tidy.
It sounds like the kind of idle fantasy you might indulge in while staying in a particularly special holiday cottage. But for Simon Blackmore and Felicity Young, as well as Flossie, their two-year-old-daughter, this is real life. The family left Wapping, East London, in January and rent their beautiful old stone house in Mottistone, on the Isle of Wight, from the National Trust.
“I had this moment of clarity when Flossie was three months old,” says Felicity, 40. “I was taking her to the mother-and-baby group, waiting to cross the road as four lanes of traffic thundered past. Flossie’s buggy was level with the exhaust fumes, there were tower blocks all around, and I suddenly thought: ‘What sort of life is this for us?’ I knew then that my love affair with London was over. It was time to leave.”
But where to? And how? Felicity is a midwife and nurse specialising in sexual health, and Simon, 34, a music PR, represents acts such as Morrissey. Both came to London in their late teens; Felicity is originally from Southampton and Simon grew up in Newton Abbot, Devon.
Their plans began to take shape when Felicity landed a job at St Mary’s Hospital on the Isle of Wight. It would allow her to work four days a week while Simon would be able to combine buying and selling rare records with caring for Flossie. With £100,000 to £140,000 to spend, they looked for properties to buy. “There wasn’t much choice. It was either a three-bed townhouse no bigger than a hobbit’s cottage or a new-build four-bed executive home on an estate, and that really wasn’t us.”
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After two months of fruitless searching they decided to rent, with a budget of up to £900 a month. They stumbled upon the Old Rectory on the internet, and could not believe that it “ticked every box” on their wishlist, from the practical, such as several bedrooms (it has five) so guests could stay, to the silly, “things such as an Aga, sea views and a crunchy gravel drive.
“When we arrived at the house, we just looked at each other in amazement. We could never have bought anywhere like this,” says Felicity. “We peered in the window at what we thought was the kitchen, but when we got inside it turned out to be the utility room. The kitchen was bigger than the whole of our flat.”
Stringent checks, including character and bank references, were carried out before the lease, a standard two-year assured-shorthold tenancy, was agreed. Although Felicity and Simon do not have to open their house to the public, they adjoin Mottistone Manor, which does. A National Trust spokeswoman says that there are no prerequisites for prospective tenants, but it wants people “who are sympathetic to the aims of the charity in its mission to care for places of historic interest or natural beauty”.
Despite a hiccup when the removal van would not go up the narrow lane, within weeks all the modern furniture from Felicity and Simon’s flat was in place, and it looked “surprisingly quite at home”. The Old Rectory is Grade I listed, and certain strictures regarding its appearance and maintenance apply: no lights hung outside, no nails to be knocked into any wall, and only Farrow & Ball paint. Hardly demanding. But what a culture shift, from the East End of London to the middle of the Solent.
Simon says that the thing he misses most from his London life are gigs, and adds that he now has to order the NME on subscription. But this is a small price to pay for his own and his daughter’s health: “I was getting horrific headaches. My GP sent me to hospital where it was discovered that I had the blood pressure of a 75-year-old-man. Flossie’s little chest rattled so much she had an inhaler. She hasn’t used it in six months.”
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Simon’s health worries have long subsided but at first he was unnerved by rustling noises in the attic: “I’ve seen Hellraiser, I know what goes on in attics,” he smiles. “I was beginning to get freaked out, and then the guy from the National Trust came round and said ‘Oh, yes, I should have told you about the barn owls’.”
The record-dealing business is thriving, but he is keenly awaiting the arrival of broadband internet later this year, and also looks forward to digital television and radio. When his beloved Torquay United were promoted he couldn’t get Ceefax and had to listen to the blow-by-blow account by phoning his dad, who put the handset next to his own radio.
Felicity, known as the “Boden nurse” because of her rapid mastery of mail-order shopping, misses sushi, but has embraced island life. “ I love to read the local paper, which has stories about people I actually know and care about rather than ‘man macheted in chip shop’, which was in our newspaper in London. At least I know that nothing like that’s going to happen round here.”
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The National Trust has a limited number of properties for rent in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Ring the trust on 0870 6095380 or contact your nearest regional office.