A man who was dreading facing a retirement of watching daytime TV and staring into his garden has taken a radical plunge by selling up and moving into a 42-ton boat on the Thames. Now the couple are travelling sedately through picturesque towns and villages and living a dream mortgage-free life.
Michael Buxton decided to take early retirement and with his wife packed up their belongings and moved out of their cul-de-sac home in Havering, having bought a 70ft by 13ft wide barge in 2016. Now they are enjoying life on the Thames. What he claims to have been an “out of body” boating experience has added excitement to his retirement with the adventures he and Janice, 62, embark on and the social boating community they have joined.
The 63-year-old said: “I can’t tell you how much I love it. In the summer we can wake up in the morning and we can have a different view every day, but it is the social side of it which is the best.
“I have never met so many people in a short space of time than I have with this boat because if I retired in Gidea Park in my little cul-de-sac, I wouldn’t have seen any of my neighbours. I would have been locked in my little house, gone around the corner to get my paper, come home, and watched Jeremy Vine. There is a friendship community side of it — it is lovely.”
Prior to their retirement, Janice worked as a credit controller in Brentwood and Michael had a varied career as a carpenter, maintenance man in a City of London bank, estate agent manager and an energy assessor.
But he decided to retire from his last job as he felt the hours were too long. With the prospect of retirement looming, Michael, intrigued by a boating lifestyle, stumbled across someone selling a vessel online. Although he was keen, he said it took a while longer to convince Janice.
He told Essex Live: “It took me six years to talk my wife into the idea of selling our bricks and mortar. She really didn’t want to do it but I persisted and we got a boat built.
“We were going to Burscough on a regular basis, watching our boat being built from sheets of metal and it’s quite exciting watching this thing grow.” He continued: “It was completely strange to us because I always lived in Essex.
“It was a completely out-of-body experience to do what we're doing because we never even holidayed or rode on a boat and then we were going to buy a 70ft by 13ft wide, 42-ton monster. It was very scary — I used to lie in bed at night and think, ‘Oh God, I've got to take this boat out tomorrow’.”
They spent two winters going to Newbury on the canal before finding a “beautiful spot” in Henley where they spent their last four winters enjoying the touristy events there. Although reluctant about the idea, Janice had “fully converted” to living on the boat now, Michael added.
Subscribe here for the latest news where you live
Unlike many houses, the boat has different types of appliances to ensure the couple can deal with everyday living conditions as well as the seasonal weather. These include air-conditioning, a log burner, a diesel radiator system and a lavatory.
He said their new lifestyle revolved around different kinds of DIY maintenance and routines, but added that the general living costs on the boat were cheaper than living in a traditional home — they have no mortgage, the cost of heating a much smaller area is considerably less, and they have sustainable electricity resources like solar panels and storage batteries.
There are, of course, other costs: repairs can be expensive. Michael said it cost him £900 to repair their diesel boiler and at least £700 to "black" the bottom of the boat — the process of protecting the hull in the water and just above the water line from rust, pitting, and general wear and tear.
Michael said people looking to buy a boat to live on needed to have a contingency plan and factor in the hidden costs to ensure the boat remained in good shape. He said: “If you cut corners your boat will deteriorate, so you've got to look after your boat. It is always a 'yin and yang' — you see the happy side of it but when things get bad, they can get really bad.
"If you think you're going to live on a boat to make things cheaper, remember you must have a contingency plan. If your engine blows up, you're going to have to make sure you have £7,000 somewhere, otherwise you'll be sitting in the dark and the cold.”
Janice and Michael now plan to use their boat to take people along the Thames for daytime tea river trips in the summer. The “luxury barge” is expected to be a four-hour chartered journey that will take up to six passengers through Oxfordshire and Berkshire.
Uniformed skippered crews will chauffeur them with hot and cold food, coffee, fruit juices, and cakes. Even though Michael would like to expand the business, he said he did not intend being inundated with work. After all, he said, he is retired.
He said he and Janice have not yet worked out how long they will go on living life on the water, as one day they might not be as agile as they currently are. However, he said he aims to carry on boating until he is at least 77 if he remains fit and healthy. He said he had no regrets about retiring at the age of 57.
“If you are ever thinking about doing it, do it earlier rather than later because of your health. If we go back to properties, I've got a dream of buying a little one or two-bedroom apartment in the Canaries. Although my wife doesn’t want to live there — so that is going to be the next challenge!"
For more stories from where you live, visit InYourArea.
