Home sweet home

An important anniversary has slipped by: last week, on the 17th June, I had lived in my present house for exactly ten years. Ten years...that's a stay-put record for me!

After leaving school, I lived with Mum and Dad in Southampton until I was twenty-six. They weren't in a hurry to push me out, and they made life pretty easy for me. I knew that, sooner or later, I'd get an office transfer to London, and so living with my parents (and giving Mum a fair, but not excessive, contribution towards the housekeeping) let me build up my savings towards a flat.

The blow fell after passing some difficult Inland Revenue internal exams in 1977, which gave me promotion. As a young, unmarried person with no responsibilities, I couldn't avoid an inevitable transfer to London. I had to work in Wimbledon, in south-west London.

It was a challenge I half wanted, half dreaded. I wished now that I'd tried living on my own, before being forced out of the nest. But I was fastidious, and I'd been put off by the state of cheap bedsits in Southampton - which were frankly squalid - and in any case Mum and Dad wouldn't have let me. I would have been overwhelmed by all sorts of sensible arguments against doing it. Clearly they wanted to keep an eye on me. (Mind you, when my younger brother Wayne chose to claim his independence and rent a flat, they let him go. He escaped the family home at twenty or twenty-one)

At first I was put in the care of friends of the family in Haslemere, which gave me a reasonable commute. Meanwhile, Mum and Dad came flat-hunting with me. The temptation was to get a place half-way between Southampton and Wimbledon, but we soon saw that might be a mistake. Better to live near the office, and have a short commute. So we looked at flats to buy within three miles of Wimbledon. Needless to say, it was a mixed blessing having my parents with me. I felt that anything that seemed worth buying had to suit them as well as myself. On the other hand, they asked pertinent questions that I'd never have thought of. Mum was very good at deciding whether (say) the kitchen was good or not. On the whole, they were fantastic moral support in a quest that became rather daunting as time went by, especially after I put an offer in and got gazumped - a nasty, upsetting experience.

Meanwhile, as 1978 progressed, the friends of the family were getting tired of my presence. I quit before they got too restive, and - secretly to Mum and Dad's delight, I think - went back home and thereafter commuted from Southampton to Wimbledon by train until I got completion on another flat I'd found in a place called Worcester Park. It was close to the station there, and I could be at the office in Wimbledon within twenty minutes. It was by far the easiest commute I enjoyed in thirty-five years of working for the Revenue. (Some truly dire commutes were yet to come)

The Worcester Park flat was in a modern block called Purdey Court, and I had a ground floor apartment with a parking space right outside my kitchen window. I also bought a garage at the rear. The flat cost me £17,000, the garage £800. That was in 1978. Zoopla now values that flat and garage at £277,000 - which shows how London prices have risen over the years!

I lived there until 1983, when I married. Five years of occupancy.

The next property was a terraced 1930's house in nearby Merton Park, still in London. We lived there until 1989, when we moved out of London to leafy Sussex. Six years of occupancy.

The property we moved into next was a newish starter home in Broadbridge Heath on the outskirts of Horsham in Sussex - we were downsizing. We had fun buying a whole lot of fancy new furniture for it, but my spouse missed London badly. We both had a long commute by car, myself especially. I enjoyed my cross-country journey. My spouse did not, having a shorter distance to work but finding it very tiring. The Broadbridge Heath home became the scene of pointless arguments and irritated bickering before we parted. I stayed put. My spouse went back to London and stayed there. I couldn't get a divorce until 1996. The house was sold in that year, as part of the 'clean break' settlement. Seven years of occupancy.

I was now free to buy a house just for myself. I found one near M---, in the village I now live in, still in Sussex. That was in 1996, and I lived there until I retired in 2005. Then it was sold, as I couldn't keep up the mortgage repayments on my Revenue pension. Nine years of occupancy.

I needed to buy another house, but smaller. Meanwhile M--- put me up. Eventually, I became the owner of Ouse Cottage in Piddinghoe, a riverside village between Lewes and Newhaven. That was in 2007. It cost much more than I could afford, and I'd never normally have considered it at all, but at the time it had investment potential. Keen to make the most of this opportunity, M--- put up the greater part (60%) of the money needed to buy it, becoming my private mortgagor while I became the legal owner. The idea was to give me a home for two or three years, then sell, and buy a better home in an even better location. A lot of people were doing that at the time.

As you might suppose, M--- was the driving spirit behind this plan, and of course she was putting up most of the money. Buying a succession of ever-better homes wasn't something I'd have done on my own, but it greatly appealed to M---, and she got me on board.

But really the Cottage was beyond my financial reach, too large for my personal needs, and expensive to run. I don't think we thought carefully enough about those running costs.

Our hopeful investment quickly went sour. The housing market faltered soon after purchase, and we found we couldn't sell it and recover our money. In fact repeated attempts to sell the Cottage, year after year, all failed. It took four long, nerve-racking years to sell, finally going in 2011 at a knockdown price, yielding just enough money to repay M--- in full, with agreed interest.

I, of course, walked away with all my investment gone forever. And worse, my friendship with M--- ruined beyond redemption. Ten years on, I can snap my fingers at the money gone; but to lose such a good friendship was a tragedy. It wasn't the only reason we parted. But the stress of a coping with a huge financial problem was an obvious factor. Neither of us could run away from it; and in the end it ruled our lives, and became very worrying. M--- wanted her money back intact, and fretted over that. I wanted relief from the crippling running expenses, which threatened to bankrupt me, for after 2009 I had two houses to run, and couldn't afford it. The Cottage represented a failed dream for one of us, a heavy millstone for the other. And all bound up with the death of a long relationship that had been so comfortable for so many years, and might have lasted indefinitely.

Risking unhappiness with ill-judged speculation? Buying property beyond one's income or needs? Private loan arrangements between friends? Never again. Never, never, never.

I owned the Cottage for four years - from 2007 to 2011 - but lived in it only to June 2009. So two years of occupancy.

Mum died in February 2009, and I inherited her half of my present home; then Dad died in May 2009, and the other half came my way. I inherited everything. My younger brother had died way back in 1995, and I was the sole survivor. Mum and Dad had moved into the house in 2000, enjoying it for only nine years, but in that short time they turned the house, and especially the rear garden, into something very pleasant indeed. It was their hobby, as well as their home. They were always adding something new. But then this had always been their way.

I was so thankful that Mum and Dad had left me their home. At Dad's funeral, everyone urged me to move into it and live there, because that would be what my parents would have wanted. I listened, and that's why on 17th June 2009 I took up residence there. I rebuilt my life. And now, I've clocked up a full ten years of occupancy.

Will I ever move away? I see no reason to. My home is in a green, rural part of Sussex, but within easy reach of bigger places and all the amenities they offer. I can get to the nearest coast inside half and hour. The village is quiet, sunny, and I have good friends here. And my home has all the old-age features Mum and Dad installed, making it future-proof for me.

So, unless my immediate neighbourhood changes radically, I consider myself a fixture. Home sweet home indeed.