Some very interesting stuff from readers on my June Diary comments about

Britons fleeing Britain. The following, from a reader in Blighty:

“Personally, I think that what you are describing here is one of the central

social facts of British life (at any rate English life south of about

Birmingham) over the last fifteen years. Mrs Thatcher may not have done much

for the workers in Glasgow or Newcastle or Sheffield, but by God, she turned

’em into millionaires in the sunny south. A personal example: my parents, a

construction foreman and primary school teacher respectively, bought a three

bedroom semi in Clapham, London SW, in 1976, and paid 17,500 pounds for it.

(This was at a time when they were earning about 6,000 per year each.) … A

lady from the local estate agency knocked on my parent’s door the other day

and offered half a million pounds for their house…

“Large chunks of France, Spain, Portugal, and Florida are currently being

swamped by cash rich Brits: they go on a booze cruise to France, see a nice

little rural cottage for 40,000 Euros, do some sums, sell the place in

London, and retire. Virtually every other TV show in the UK now seems to be

an example of what a commentator in the London Evening Standard recently

described as ‘property pornography’ – images of beautiful, Country Life [a

tony British magazine] -style houses in sunny places where they have cheap

booze, cheap property, and ready made expat ghettoes where you don’t have to

learn a word of the local language. I think the French in particular, are

getting a bit fed up with this influx.

“May the Lord bless and keep Margaret Thatcher all the days of her life.”

[Derb here] No argument from me on that last. Here is a different reader:

“Hey Derb—It is not only your nephew who’s left England. An Englishman I

know – a computer professional – is building a house in Bulgaria. He and

his girlfriend wanted to live in Turkey but could not afford it. He’s

around 45 and says there are a number of other West Europeans who are doing

the same. An article in the WSJ confirmed what he said – that a number of

Brits and others are ‘real estate refugees’ in Bulgaria.

“When you think about it, though, it makes sense, especially for computer

types. The company where I work is trying to outsource everything – why not

to an English speaking programmer on the Black Sea coast? His rates will be

lower than those of a programmer in Luton, or in Burlington Massachusetts.

Still, I’d be put off from doing this by reading the history of either

country.”

[Derb here] What my readers are saying accords with what I’ve been hearing

from British relatives. Among the things my sister told me when we

discussed this last was that you can choose a cheap country like Turkey to

live in, or a real cheap country. “Like what?” I asked. She: “Romania

is very popular.”

I suppose there is some point at which the tradeoff (great climate and

really cheap living vs. appalling history and dangerous govt.) tips to

“unacceptable.” I mean, I don’t suppose we’ll be seeing a flood of British

computer programmers into Sierra Leone any time soon. Still, the Brits are

a hardy lot, and it’s amusing to speculate how far this might go. Could it

be that, 50 years from now, Britain will be Muslim but Turkey Anglican?

Stranger things have happened in history.

Andrew, how are you getting on with setting up that pied-a-terre in Laos?