Bryony Roberts and Eric Booth are a young couple in their early 20’s who have lived rent-free in London on a boat for nearly two years. Disillusioned with life in a shared house, they could not resist the prospect of having their own place. Bryony told Felix Magazine about the benefits and challenges of living on the water.
How did you decide to live on a boat?
“Eric and I moved down to London so that I could go to college to study tailoring and escape the bleak Midlands mining town mentality. The most affordable place to live was a room in a shared house with some Eastern Europeans and there was no communication whatsoever. It was alienating and North London is full of rows and rows of houses where no one knows their neighbours. We were desperate to have our own space and privacy – to cook a meal or shower and not wait for five others first.
We were looking at cheap flats on Gumtree and came across a narrowboat to rent. We got very excited and did a lot of research into boating and continuous cruising and how it all works. When we went home for Christmas we were so excited about the prospect of living on the canal it was all we had to talk about. We rented the first boat for over a year.
Renting a continuously cruising boat is illegal in most cases. Many people in London are doing it without knowing or they are prepared to take the risk. It can be a worry and you don’t feel secure knowing that if the wrong people found out you could lose your home. By some miracle through family connections we had the opportunity to buy our own larger boat with a mortgage.”
What problems did you encounter?
“A lot of people think that it is all Rosie and Jim and summer holiday all year but it really isn’t. The first reality is that you are very much in control of your utilities. You have to fetch your own drinking water to fill an onboard tank. Our first tankload lasted about a week but we now make them last over 3 months. You have to keep an eye on Calor gas and remember to always keep a spare bottle for cooking. Electricity you generate by running the engine or getting solar panels. You need to keep an eye on the batteries to make sure they are charged up as it is the worst experience if they go flat.
Boats are weird, sometimes you turn a tap on and a light goes off. Bins for general waste and recycling are few and far between. You need to be hands on with your own waste either by emptying cassettes into a sluice or going to pump out stations. It’s a pretty grim thought that you can be lugging months and months worth of excrement with you in a tank.
In winter boats get very cold and condensated inside which can be pretty gross. You might spend large parts of the evening chopping wood for the stove, it can be dirty and hard work but it’s cosy.”
How do you feel about moorings and crowding?
“Most boats in London are continuous cruisers without home moorings, which means you have to move every two weeks. Central London has become noticeably more congested in the few years that we have been boating and in prime spots people always have to double or triple moor. Triple mooring brings you back to the lack of privacy as you have to walk over people’s boats to get to your own or vice versa. It isn’t exactly safe.
This congestion has taken its toll on the boating community, you might have to spend your entire Sunday waiting at a water point. A “good” continuous cruiser will have a cruising range of about 30 miles before turning around. This can make commuting very expensive, and stressful. It’s also difficult to maintain friendships in each area where you moor.
At each new mooring we consult the trusty google maps to work out that fortnight’s commute and find launderettes and food.”
What were the benefits of living on a boat?
“It isn’t all bad because it is nice to experience all these parts of London that we wouldn’t have otherwise visited. We start to build a mental map of pubs, launderettes, parks, coffee and Ikea. Another great thing is that you are part of a small and quite young community. You can be moored in Zone One in Paddington or a park for short spaces at a time where people would pay hundreds of thousands for a flat smaller than our boat.”
How do people react to your way of life?
“You do sometimes feel like a spectacle. People are always very interested and nosy through the windows. People on the tow path who can’t understand our way of life make funny passing comments. Many selfie takers have actually got on the boat. Others might jump on and off the boat and your security is violated. Luckily the boating community looks out for each other with updates on social media warning of any trouble. It’s all worth it for being off grid and having freedom to move away when you are not happy.”
You are going to rent a mooring closer to your home. Why are you looking forward to that?
“We are moving to a residential mooring in the West Midlands which means that we will have more home comforts like water on tap and 240-volt electricity if required. We will have a base to commute from and won’t be obliged to move but we can still go on holidays with our home. We can even have a postal address, which makes things like doctors much easier. Not having an address can be a struggle as a continuous cruiser, especially if you have a family or if you need to claim benefits. I am looking forward to feeling more at home in one place and fully exploring the area. Ultimately we do want to cruise again as there is so much more to see.”
-Stewart Vickers @VickHellfire Header photo model credit: Bryony’s cat, Pru
The post Living Rent-Free in London on a Boat: Bryony and Eric’s Story appeared first on Felix Magazine.
No comments:
Post a Comment