At 5.30am every Wednesday Dan Cullen-Shute is aboard his electric Brompton bike, pedalling from home to the station.
A year on since he moved from London to Yorkshire, he hasn’t yet learnt to love this early morning ritual.
But his new home, community and proximity to some of the most beautiful countryside Britain has to offer more than compensates for that early alarm.
“It has been bloody wonderful,” he says.
Before the pandemic Cullen-Shute, 43, and his wife, Abigail, also 43, were living in Loughborough Junction. They shared their four-bedroom Victorian end-of-terrace with their two children, Stan, eight, and Mali, three, and the family cat, Royston.
He co-founded advertising firm Creature in 2011 and after staff worked successfully from home during lockdown, he decided to move over to a hybrid system where staff go to the office on Wednesdays and Thursdays.
The rest of the week they can work from home, the office or wherever they happen to be.
This decision freed Cullen-Shute and his wife, who is about to start a new job as an operations manager, from living in London.
“I grew up in south-east Wales in a tiny village and Ab grew up in Northumberland, really in the middle of nowhere,” says Cullen-Shute.
"If we were going to move out, we wanted to move properly out — no disrespect to suburb-dwellers."
“I think we always knew that the time would come when we would move out.”
It wasn’t going out on the town in London that the couple really missed when the world shut down during the pandemic, they realised, but being able to get away for weekends in the country and by the coast.
“If we were going to move out, we wanted to move properly out — no disrespect to suburb-dwellers,” says Cullen-Shute.
Then, heading home after a visit to see his in-laws, the family found themselves in the Yorkshire countryside.
“It was like driving into a Turner painting. We came up to explore on a half term and fell in love with the place.”
Stan gave his approval to the idea and in 2022 the couple sold their London home for £1.3 million and traded up to a five-bedroom detached house in a hamlet near Ilkley, which also cost £1.3 million.
In January last year they completed their family with boxer dog, Beryl.
Being in London two days a week has its perks for Cullen-Shute — he can catch up with friends, go to the pub, and eat out — but the morning cycle to the station at Ben Rhydding followed by a long train ride to King’s Cross has been tough.
Being away from the family — he stays over at a flat belonging to a friend of a friend on Wednesday nights — is also a drawback. But what he gets in return more than makes up for it.
“It wouldn’t be worth it for a bigger house alone, but there is more to it,” he says.
"The countryside is wonderful and the people are wonderful.
"You hear some horror stories, but Ab and I have put ourselves out there a bit, even though we are both naturally quite shy, and we are surrounded by smart, lovely people.
"You do lose that big city anonymity, but we really love that.”
