"The gays have arrived". That's how Tony and Chris Ashby-Steed announced to the world they had the keys to their new home just outside Newcastle Emlyn in rural west Wales. Both visibly excited, they then ran across the street to begin their video tour of the property.
Fast forward three-and-a-half months and having watched their progress on Instagram, I'm barely at the top of the steep driveway before Tony Ashby-Steed gives a huge warm wave and, within seconds, is showing me round the pots of plants lined up in the garden. "That one is called 'Gay Paree'" he tells me as I coo over a beautiful blooming peony.
When Tony and Chris moved from Brighton to Newcastle Emlyn they didn't just move their belongings, jobs and their lives, but 400 plants from their beloved garden, which themselves filled four moving vans. This move wasn't just a kneejerk reaction to the pandemic but the story of how a couple found themselves again, and their happy place in the heart of rural Wales.
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It was in 2018, just six months after the couple got married, when Tony's mum, to whom he was exceptionally close, moved in with them having had a stroke. She was very determined but the couple quickly realised the house was no longer suitable so they needed to either move or build an extension.
Post-Brexit, the housing market was stagnant so they decided to remortgage and build an extension for her. But on the second day of building Tony's mum fell into the ditch which had been dug for the foundations and was injured.
After a hospital stay she was admitted to a care home to recover but fell again a number of times. It emerged she had a double bleed on her brain which was impacting her personality. "She was changing, she was becoming mean and that wasn't my mum," said Tony.
She spent the next four-and-half months in hospital and three times he was told to go in and say his goodbyes. Incredibly, she pulled through but needed the use of a wheelchair.
"We didn't know if she was going to be able to walk again and thankfully we made sure everything was wheelchair accessible and had a wet room and that kind of thing, and she came home and as well as working full time and being a husband and a daddy to the dogs I had to nurse mum full time as well," said Tony.
Chris says: "Our lives have been put on hold for three years, but also just little things but they were all sacrifices that we made. We sacrificed a lot in that three years."
Tony has already described his relationship with Chris as being full of banter and, despite his tears, they joke about having to give up VIP tickets to Kylie at Brighton Pride in 2019, and missing the parade with the float Tony had worked so hard on. Tony said: "Don't get me wrong. I would do the same thing again, a million times, and I would give anything to have her back even for just five minutes but we were newly-married and it was hard for us because for the majority of those three years, we couldn't even have an afternoon out together".
Two years on, in late 2020, his mum got a chest infection and had to go back to hospital. After leaving hospital she caught Covid and was readmitted. At the start of 2021, Tony was told there was nothing that could be done and she was given palliative care.
"Thankfully, it wasn't like the previous summer and I was allowed to go in. So for mum's last three days I spent all day every day at the bedside and with all my PPE, holding her hand, and talking to her talking any old rubbish, remembering lots of things and making sure I wasn't saying anything that indicated that she was dying."
On one occasion, despite the medication, she took him by his neck and pulled him close and looked at him, a memory Tony treasures. She died shortly afterwards. There was no respite. He caught Covid himself. To try protect Chris' mum, Tony spent the time apart from his husband in his mum's old room. That wasn't easy because it showed him the way she had been living her life, stuck in one room.
But one blessing to come from it is the strength it gave their relationship: "We call ourselves either 'hinge and bracket' or 'George and Mildred' because we we are like an old married couple. We do banter a lot. We've got these cushions and mine says 'He's never wrong' and his says 'I'm never wrong' and that's right. This man is my best friend and, I tell you something, we'd only been married for six months and without a second thought he said 'of course your mum has to move in'," Tony says.
It was not long afterwards that Chris suggested they had to think of their next move. He said: "What it comes down to is that I'm a Gemini and I need new challenges in life. I was getting married and doing the work on the house and then it was like we were trapped. I describe it as being trapped in a gilded cage. You can't go out. There was the financial side of it as well, because I wasn't able to work and it was just one thing after another and I just felt like I was a trapped bird, I needed to get out. I'm 45 and he's 52 and I just felt it was at a point in our lives we needed a new challenge."
Until losing his mum, Tony couldn't see himself ever moving from their house. "We'd put our heart, our soul and every penny we had, and didn't have, into that house and the garden and I couldn't imagine leaving it. Then part-way through the year I completely flipped on my head. It's been 16 months since I lost mum and I haven't really grieved and I was so close to her. I have type 2 bipolar disorder and I've done so much cognitive behavioural therapy that my brain automatically blocks triggers. I think that's what's been happening but then I realised staying in that house was toxic because everywhere I went was mum, everywhere in Brighton was mum. It was hard."
Chris, too, had memories he wanted to leave behind. From 2013 to 2018 he appeared on the Channel 4 show Gogglebox with his ex-boyfriend Stephen Webb, who remains on the show now with his husband. "I had the memories of Gogglebox there too and I wanted to eliminate those". For Tony, leaving the house and Brighton, "it feels like we've broken free".
They spent hours on Rightmove looking at options. For Tony, the reality of the last few years hit and he just didn't feel able to do another big project, especially as builder friends spelt out the reality of rising prices and what that would mean for their budget. They knew they wanted somewhere with some land in a more rural location but kept saying they couldn't just up and move to somewhere new. Eventually, in a call with a friend, they said they had decided they would move to Wales "in a couple of years". It took her saying "Why wait?" for them to realise and decide to take the plunge.
The couple had no ties or links to Wales but ended up living in Newcastle Emlyn. Tony works for Legal and General and spoke to them about a transfer, and they said yes, to Cardiff. So, Tony drew up a shortlist of 20 homes. He said: "We didn't know any areas and we had an idea that we might discover an area that we like through looking at houses, or we might find a house that we completely fall in love with and then we need to check out the area that is it."
They put their home on the market on the Wednesday, came to Wales that Friday and on Monday phoned the estate agent to put in an offer. They'd spent all day Saturday in Newcastle Emlyn, speaking to people in the town and a number of "signs" made them take the plunge: "We went into one of the pubs in the village and every single person in the pub said hello to us and literally seconds after we walked in Dancing Queen came on — it was a sign!" They both laugh.
As soon as they stepped onto the doorstep of what would become their new home, the couple looked at each other and immediately knew it was the one for them before they'd seen any more. What was a family home is now being painstakingly restored by the couple.
Despite having only moved three-and-a-half months ago, they have made quick work of sanding floors, painting rooms and converting the bathrooms. Chris is a brilliant bargain hunter and restorer.
As they take me round the three-storey home, they point out exactly what cost what and where it was found. Chandeliers now hang from the ceilings, grand dressers line the walls, decades of paint have been stripped, things have been lovingly restored.
The beautiful original lights which hang on the outside of what will become Chris' hairdressing salon were picked up for a fraction of their worth at a car boot sale for £45. They will let their four designated guest rooms out through AirBnB and have set aside one of the reception rooms as a guest lounge.
They are adamant they want to be part of the community. All guests will be given recommendations of where to go in the village and they want to join local committees and groups. Tony wants to paint the bus stop and they want to join the local Rotary and amateur dramatics group. The AirBnB earnings will help fund their continued plans for the house.
Chris also wants to work on interiors. He has past form for informally helping friends improve their homes before selling them, and his eye for design gives him a natural desire to work with others.
Chris' shed is his very own Repair Shop. He loves stripping items back to their original condition and bringing them back to life.
Under the brand name The Furniture Fairy he wants a business where people can come and bring their items and treat it as therapy for both the person (who is emotionally attached to the item) and the item (which needs a new lease of life). Chris also wants to continue with his hairdressing.
The couple moved from the gay capital of the UK to a small village and admit it was a concern. Tony said: "It was a concern because obviously we don't know people here and we didn't know if we were going to be accepted or not. But we thought 'Sod it, it's the 21st century. The UK is not like it was in the 1980s when we were kids, it's a different place. We're going to give the people of Wales and Newcastle Emlyn the benefit of the doubt'. And you know, whatever age, people have been just so lovely."
The village is yet to see them in full flow, Chris says: "Most of the time I'm walking around to just my scruffs but the village hasn't experienced my fashion yet. It's quite bright, I wear a lot of two pieces and big hats and big sunglasses."
Chris says he feels safer in Wales than he ever did in Brighton: "I would say, obviously I've been here for a very, very short space of time, and I was there for like 20 years, but I felt more unsafe in Brighton than I do here."
It is five years since Chris left the Channel 4 show Gogglebox and it still amuses him that he's recognised for being on the show. Part of his reason for moving from Brighton was to escape the aftermath, but he is still recognised in his new home.
Someone working in the local Chinese told him to remove his mask and then told him "One of my friends in the village told me one of the guys from Gogglebox is moving up here and he's going to have an AirBnB, so I knew it must be you". On another occasion in a pub, Tony momentarily worried their dancing had caught someone's eye and trouble was brewing, until the man sat at the bar asked Chris for a selfie.
Chris has anxiety and said during his time on, and after, the show he really struggled.
"I felt like I was pretending and it was just this real angst, and I got this real anxiety about different places because it'd be like people would stare at me and be like, 'Oh my God, they're staring at me, what are they going to say?'.
"I felt like I was a phoney. In Brighton people would more than likely expect me to be there so being here is quite nice. It doesn't bother me as much. I still have that bit inside where people ask and I go a bit shy."
Their spare time is all spent working on the house and making plans for the pots and pots of plants and trees they have brought with them, but they want to learn more about where they live.
Tony said: "We've found already some amazing places and we describe here as the best of Devon and the best of Cornwall, right on our doorstep but in a much more compact area. We've we've gone to Cardigan and we turned right so we know the beaches are there.
"We haven't turned left yet but we know there's the Pembrokeshire national park down there. For us, it feels like we've both gone to sleep, that we're in a dream that we're sharing and it's the best dream you've ever had and we're never going to wake up from."
Chris said: "Before we moved we didn't feel like we had a good life work balance. Whereas here, even though there's still lots to do, it's still a lifestyle thing. We're doing this because it's going to reward us later in life. You know, we want to stay here for the next 20 years.
"We're a lot calmer, we don't have that the stresses and the strains. We have lots of friends in Brighton and the ones that matter will come and visit.
"It was scary moving here. I did have my doubts about it and I thought 'I can't do it' but I thought to myself 'Twenty years ago I lived in Buckinghamshire and if I hadn't left and moved to Brighton, not knowing anyone I would never have met all these amazing people'. So I had to put myself in that situation again, and by leaving somewhere else I realised I was going to meet so many other wonderful people."
