With a glass of champagne in hand and the turquoise River Fal gleaming in front of me, I felt smug. It was October 2017, and my fiancé and I were celebrating the acceptance of our £450,000 offer on a cottage just outside the seaside village of St Mawes.
We were finally escaping the exhausting daily commute of the south east, replacing it with peaceful beaches, quaint villages and an altogether slower pace of life in Cornwall.
I was convinced that the county’s untouched Roseland Peninsula was the ultimate upgrade. We’d be a stone’s throw from our favourite spots including Portscatho’s tiny harbour, the Lost Gardens of Heligan and endless quiet coves.
But sadly the reality didn’t live up to the much-hyped daydream.
For a start, it wasn’t until Christmas 2019 that we finally managed to make the move full-time, with a baby in tow. One of us was always needed back in London or Cambridge for work.
When we eventually spent more than a few weeks together in our coastal bolthole, our 14-year relationship imploded from the stress of living in a half-renovated property in a remote village, with a newborn.
I found myself a single mother in the middle of nowhere, cut off from the hectic pace of the capital and desperately missing its anonymity and my friendship network.
Ironically, I was physically closer to my mum, grandmother and extended family than in decades. They were just an hour or so up the road on their farm, but even that felt a world away when I was caring for a little one and juggling work with property renovation.
Rebecca Tidy moved with her fiancé and young daughter to a cottage just outside the seaside village of St Mawes in 2019
Rebecca Tidy (pictured with her daughter) is a single mother after the pressure of the move ended her engagement to her daughter’s father
Life in Cornwall didn’t magically get better when summer hit. Tourists descend in droves each year, gridlocking narrow, single-lane roads that inexplicably haven’t been upgraded since the days of horses and carts. Bins constantly overflow and seagulls circle, dive-bombing for discarded pasties or fish and chips. And parking becomes a competitive sport.
The only half-decent hotel gym in miles shuts its doors to locals so it can cater to visitors. I try to avoid even a trip to the supermarket, as traffic slows to a crawl and it ends up taking almost half a day.
Locals call this “overtourism.” I call it what it is and that’s a woeful underinvestment in infrastructure.
The Cornish are famously proud of their cultural heritage. And rightly so. But I was shocked by how real the hostility to “incomers” and resistance to change can be.
Soon after our arrival, I asked, perfectly politely, if the village shop stocked oat milk. An elderly man looked me up and down and commented: “We don’t sell that muck in here. F*** off back to London.”
I think he was joking, but it definitely carried a sharp edge.
The mother-of-one enjoying a rare quiet moment on the beach during the summer. The area is usually overrun with tourists and it can take half a day to drive to the supermarket
Months later, I was shocked to hear the popular local electrician tipsily bragging in the village pub about charging some “emmets” – a Cornish word for “outsiders” – four times the usual rate.
Even the weekly girls’ ballet classes at the village hall is a battleground. It costs £10 a session, but parents aren’t allowed to wait indoors during the lesson — not even in the empty room next door — unless we pay extra to hire the space.
When I queried this rule, I got a cold response. Days later, I was quietly removed from the village Facebook group. I later learned that there had been a thread filled with complaints about the fact I’d spoken out.
It is funny, I suppose, but at the same time the message is crystal clear. Toe the line or you’re out.
I’m constantly puzzled by how often locals lament the so-called “housing crisis,” while fiercely opposing the construction of any affordable homes that might actually help solve it.
Of course, there are fewer sirens in sleepy Cornwall. You don’t worry about getting mugged by a teenager on an e-scooter. But crime doesn’t disappear, instead it takes a different form.
From the beginning of her pregnancy, Rebecca knew that she wanted a safe, stable life for her baby, and felt ‘smug’ about her move to Cornwall initially
Rebecca’s been making an effort to immerse herself in a whole new world and make friends with other newcomers locally
I can’t recall any drug raids or stabbings in this neck of the woods, yet my neighbour’s dog defecates in my front garden every single day without fail. It’s not a crime that will get anyone locked up, but it’s the kind of thing that slowly chips away at your sanity in a place where everyone swears they’re just doing their best.
Some people thrive in this tight-knit environment. They love that nothing goes unnoticed and that gossip travels faster than the local broadband signal. Personally, I’ve struggled to adapt to the village-wide interest in my every move.
When the police turned up at my door, as I called a retired officer a raging misogynist, it felt like front page news for weeks. People still comment on it over a year later. These days, I second guess almost everything I say.
I desperately miss the privacy and excitement of the city, being able to get on with life without mistakenly stepping on local toes. And I miss grabbing oat milk at the nearest shop without triggering a minor culture war, and not having to tiptoe through what feels like a political minefield every time I challenge how something’s done.
But even if I wanted to disappear back to London, I can’t. My ex-fiancé has already remarried and had another child. Our daughter, who adores her dad, wouldn’t want to live far away from him, and I wouldn’t want that for her either.
So, I’ve decided I’m staying put. I’m going to learn to love this place.
Fortunately, the school run and my child’s extracurricular classes have opened up new friendships. I’d become uncharacteristically shy after the oat milk moment and ballet hall debacle, but slowly my confidence has returned.
I tentatively turned back to Facebook, not for the cliquey village group, but to connect with newcomers and locals looking to build new friendships.
Things have gone surprisingly well and I’ve met some brilliant friends, some with their own faintly traumatising tales of adapting to rural life.
Gradually, I’m beginning to appreciate the seaside peace I once craved. I spend time outside gardening or sitting with a cup of tea, enjoying the stillness. It’s far from the seaside life I imagined, but it’s becoming one I can live with. Maybe even love.
