Getting out of London was never part of Toni Tambourine’s life plan.
The music publicist and DJ moved to the capital in the late 1980s and couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.
“To me London was the absolute centre of the universe,” he said.
Toni settled in east London, eventually buying himself a flat in Bow. Then, during a trip to India almost ten years ago, he met his now-wife, Clare Lepore.
She lived in Brighton and after doing long distance for several years she agreed to move in with Toni.
But Clare is a driving instructor and she found working in London’s gridlocked streets impossible.
“I wrestled with my conscience and eventually I agreed to move to her house in Brighton, very, very, very reluctantly,” said Toni.
“I moved down kicking and screaming.”
“I moved down kicking and screaming.”
Seven years on and Toni’s addiction to London life is a distant memory.
Toni, 53, and Clare, 39, got married a year after he moved to Brighton, and they have a son, Luca, who is five.
In 2022 they sold Claire’s house and bought themselves a two bedroom Victorian house in Roundhill, just north of the city centre.
The property cost £412,000, and they have embarked on a full renovation.
“Being in Brighton is like living in a suburb of London — it only takes me about an hour and a quarter to get in to DJ, which was about the same as it used to take me from Bow, so it doesn’t feel like I have disconnected myself” said Toni, whose old flat is now rented out.
“I have got an office 50 yards from the seafront — it is Fat Boy Slim’s old office — and every morning I drop my little boy off and walk along the seafront to work. It is a completely different level of contentment with regards to the daily grind.”
“I have got an office 50 yards from the seafront — it is Fat Boy Slim’s old office.”
Toni has also discovered that creative life doesn’t stop at the M25.
He has found plenty of like minded souls on the south coast, and founded a record label so he can work with local DJs (@tonitambourine).
He loves Brighton’s diversity and trendiness.
“It is a really creative space, but it is all a little bit more relaxed than London,” he said.
“London exerts this strange emotional attachment, but I have learned that actually you can do exactly the same things outside London. I still have the stimulation of being in the city, but this is a really beautiful place.”
