people in discursively framed social and economic ‘roles’ – in this case buyers and sellers. Eddie lays great stress on the importance of ‘researching’ just who his buyers are and where they come from. Two thirds of them, he confirms, are from urban settings. The minority are people, he says, who, ‘are from the same rural locality and are upgrading from one house to another invariably on inher- ited money’.
‘But the majority are people who lived in urban housing estates in a Barratt type of house [a relatively modest type of private house] who dream of moving into country. They have either got to the point where their joint salaries are sufficient to move up in the housing market or they are people moving into their first managerial job.’
What this implies is that social mobility as well as geographical mobility is an important factor in the ‘becoming otherwise’ of Eddie’s clients. And a key aspiration of many of them is to provide a better education for their children than they might otherwise have been able to afford. The implication of what he is saying is that many of Eddie’s clients have life orientations which involve a rejection of the ‘rat race’ of big city life, whilst nevertheless wanting to be, as he puts it, ‘reasonably prosperous’. His own life orientation, he implies, involves much more ambition than theirs. His clients, he feels, are not ‘proper entrepreneurs’ like himself and he speaks in a mildly disapproving tone of people being happy in what he calls ‘their comfort zones’. He speaks disparag- ingly of them as people who comfortably settle on a size of business that can be run from a dining room or from ‘a bit built on the side of the house’.
However, the irony is that Eddie benefits appreciably in business terms from there being people who seek such a ‘comfort zone’ in the country. An exam- ple of this would be Jane and Tom Ford.
JANE AND TOM FORD: RURAL–URBAN SHIFTERS AND
of property we wanted, and especially, the size of garden that we wanted for our three children. Up here not only do we have a big garden but we have a paddock and an orchard. This gives the kids a life much more like the one I had and I want them to be able . . .’
‘Just a minute, Tom, you haven’t explained how we came to move up here in the first place. Speaking for myself, the crucial thing, I think, was the increas- ing crime levels in what, otherwise, was a very nice district to live in.’
‘All that’s true, Jane, but there were much more positive factors weren’t there?’
‘Yes of course, and the children’s education was important here. To be honest, we weren’t at first too sure what the implications would be of moving up to North Notts for the kid’s schooling. But Eddie Newhall was very helpful on this. As he pointed out, this barn conversion that we have now got is very close to a couple of very good schools. And I’ve been lucky to get some work in one of those schools . . .’
‘Yeah, but we wouldn’t be up here in the first place if it wasn’t for my job. Let me try to explain this to you. This is very important, I think, for your research.
If I remember rightly, it started with a conversation – at a party I think it was – with my cousin. He had this accounting firm in Newark. It was growing and he was keen to interest me in becoming a partner with him. My first thought was “Oh no, down-shifting is not my style”. But over time the idea grew on me.’
‘Yes, in one sense it is down-shifting. We were losing the big bonuses Tom got in the city firm. In another way, though, it is quite the opposite. We’ve got a bigger house than we could have afforded in London. We’ve got all this land.
And, above all, we have got a lot more time as a family. Life all round is richer.’
‘I think Jane’s used a good word there. We are certainly well off here even if the income is lower than before. In some ways this area offers us something – how can I put it? – more socially upmarket.’
‘That’s right. The riding lessons for the kids are a good example of this.
Having a pony is one of those almost cliché middle class things, isn’t it. But we could not have dreamed of that in London. And rubbing shoulders with some of the big estate owners at the tennis club gives you more the feeling of . . .’
‘I don’t agree with Jane about that sort of thing – the social mixing I mean.
But, yes, the riding for the kids is something quite different for us. In fact, it was Eddie Newhall who pointed out the opportunities that our kids would have for this kind of thing.’
‘And Tom, it was Eddie who told us who to contact about joining the tennis club. And didn’t he put us in touch with those people in the church who helped us with the . . . .’
‘OK, OK. We got help linking into the local networks. But now we are well able to look after ourselves.’
These closing words of Tom Ford imply a certain edginess towards Eddie Newhall, the entrepreneur-developer from whom they bought their rural prop- erty. He is anxious to counter his wife’s emphasis on the extent to which Eddie did more than simply sell them a property. She tells of three ways in which he contributed to their ‘becoming otherwise’ as they moved into Kerston: getting them involved with ponies and riding lessons (‘one of those almost cliché middle class things’); introducing them to the tennis club and putting them in touch with ‘people in the church’. And Tom is also troubled by Jane’s implied pleasure at being part of the rural embourgeoisement or ‘gentrification’
process. Tom is embarrassed by her mention of ‘rubbing shoulders’ with estate owners, for example. Yet he himself talks of how the area offers them some- thing ‘more socially upmarket’. And, note, this cultural upward social mobil- ity has occurred in spite of the fact that Tom and Jane are now living on a lower monetary income. This fits with a pattern observed in research that shows that concerns with quality of life are more significant to urban–rural shifters than employment considerations (Williams and Jobes, 1995). Tom rejects the notion of ‘down shifting’ suggesting that everything in the life orientations of his family is, in one way or another, ‘upwards’.
The relationship between Eddie Newhall, the entrepreneur-developer, and the Ford family of urban–rural shifters and entrepreneur-clients is one from which both parties clearly have benefited. Their mutual ‘becoming other’ has its roots in both the Newhall and the Ford families changing their life orienta- tions by, at different stages, moving from the city into the country. Each family is in some sense moving ‘upwards’ as part of their having moved ‘outwards’.
And, correspondingly, the Sylvie part of the Newhall businesses is moving upwards and outwards. This is apparent in her account of her ambitions for the business:
‘I am not sure that businesses stay in the rural outback once the business has taken off. I don’t know for sure but I imagine that businesses that are really
growing would stay in the countryside whilst the business is emerging, but once you get to 10, 12, 15 employees you start to build an organisational infra- structure, you need bigger premises, broadband technology, and the right image.’
‘Are you saying then that you are thinking you might transfer your business soon to a town location like Newark?’
‘Well, I am thinking about it. Eddie thinks he gave me the idea for this but I had always planned to start up the business here at home and if things took off, which I am pleased to say they have, I would move to Nottingham or Newark.
Newark makes sense for my business because it is only 1 hour and 30 minutes on the train to London. It is really an up and coming town, quite cosmopolitan with lots of bistros and leisure activities. Property prices have really gone up and it has really cultivated its image as interesting historical country/market town – where part of the English civil war was fought. It has waterside prop- erties, warehouse apartments and many large retail outlets are setting up there.
So I am looking at re-locating there for the next phase of growth for my busi- ness.’
‘And what about Eddie’s construction business – do you see that moving out of the Kerston district also?’
‘Well, I can’t see that happening. Eddie is too attached to his farm and horses.
And anyway I love living in Kerston. It is just that for my business to really take off I need to be in a town location now. His business is not really going to grow any further. He employs about 4 people full time and has a workforce of 10 sub-contractors. He has plenty of new projects underway. But there is just not the scope within the construction industry to make a lot of money. And that whole building sector is just so chaotic – no systems in place – everything working on an informal basis – no organisation, strategy or vision for the future. But then I shouldn’t really complain because he is helping me find the right sort of place to move to in Newark.’