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A place of my own

Why I love my one-bedroom flat 

Rene Dixon, a widow of 72, moved from a four-bedroom family house to a one-bedroom ground-floor flat six years ago. She lives in Harlow, Essex.

Downsizing to a flat just big enough for her bed, sofa and computer has brought untold freedom to Rene Dixon.

“Every day I wake up and think how lucky I am,” she says, still ecstatic about her liberation from household chores.

A mother of four with eight grandchildren, Rene spent years cooking Sunday lunch, matching socks and cleaning. Now, with no carpets, she can mop right through in 15 minutes.

“I love the solitude of having my own place. I have had the happiest years of my life since I moved here.”

She married at 19 after falling pregnant and, despite having four children, she describes her married life as “45 years of misery”.

“People say, ‘Oh, why did you put up with him?’” Rene says, “but I couldn’t leave him. I had no money.”

So she took comfort in the camaraderie of the square where she lived in a former council house, bought 35 years ago for £5,000.

Freedom came late, but nine years ago she walked out and rented a flat, borrowing money on the strength of getting half the value of the house, now worth £65,000.

After the divorce was granted, Rene discovered there would be no money as her husband was heavily in debt. He died two years ago from a stroke.

The council provided a ground-floor flat and, in 1998, Rene opened the door on a new life. “I run a Scrabble club for pensioners, take classes in philosophy and, until recently, played golf.”

As she only has a state pension, her children help her financially, and cook meals for her. After seeing them, Rene drives back to her flat to play Scrabble on the net. “Every day is a bonus,” she says.

“If I died tomorrow, I’ll have had a good innings in the last few years. Unbelievable. That’s why I think it can’t last.”

The only furniture she has from her previous life are a cabinet and a card table. Rene finds happiness in this.

“I’m not sentimental. When people move, they think, ‘Oh, I can’t leave this or that.’ But once you’ve gone, you don’t miss what you’ve left.”

Written by Sally Williams 

This article was created: 19 October 2006.
This article was last edited: 23 October 2006.

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