_{Downsize to enjoy the simple pleasures in life}

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Michael Farr, 66, a retired manager on South West Trains, and Pauline Farr, 60, a retired civil servant, moved from their four-bedroom townhouse to a small bungalow in Callington, Cornwall, just over two years ago.

Michael and Pauline sold their home to avoid a 330-mile drive, rather than to release funds. They lived in Andover, Hampshire, one of their sons, Andrew, 37, an accountant, also lives in Callington, with his wife and four daughters.

“We don’t enjoy driving and the only way we could get to them was by car,” says Michael. “We weren’t seeing as much of them as we’d like to and they seemed quite happy for us to see more of them.”

They planned to live about an hour away, but ended up in the next road. “We’ve said so many times, thank heavens for that,” says Pauline. “It works both ways. They give us a hand and we give them a hand.”

Grandfather now delivers the eldest two children to Brownies, without having to drag the others along. Granny babysits, serves buttered toast for tea, and scoops up dancers from ballet classes in the next town.

“We feel that we have definitely got to know the children much better than we were able by remote control,” says Michael.

Their only regret is moving away from their younger son, Grahame, 34, a production manager in a printing firm, who lives near their old house in Andover. But, says Pauline, “we did it with his blessing.”

The couple moved in 2002, but that simple statement does not capture the reality of the upheaval. A railway enthusiast, Michael had collected enough timetables, tickets and 'relics' – station name boards, lamps and ticket machines, to fill a transport museum.

After buying his first railway ticket in 1948, on his way to school, he had collected 50,000 of them. Their numbers multiplied in the cupboards of their Andover home, where they had lived since the Eighties.

It took four months of sorting before the move, and more than £100 in postage for the collection to be reduced by one-third, much of it sent to fellow enthusiasts or interested museums. “I had to be ruthless, but I wasn’t as ruthless as I should have been.”

The bungalow cupboards are already full, and rail relics crowd the garage. Pauline, whose interest in trains does not go beyond getting her from A to B, is philosophical. “It’s not a problem, as long as it stays out of the lounge.”

Her fear is more domestic. Space in her old kitchen was sufficient to accommodate whole sides of bacon and baskets of seasonal produce. Now, she barely has room for an economy dishwasher. “That’s the downside,” she says, “no storage space.”

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

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