'We're on a really exciting adventure': Couple quit safe careers to start Ludlow home shop
In the latest in our Support the High Street campaign, Matthew Panter spoke to a couple who are living their dream after quitting their first careers to open a shop.
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Sometimes you have to take a chance in life.
You might be perfectly comfortable in what you do but have that sense of longing for something else.
That was the situation Nick, 28, and Hayley Schuller, 27, found themselves in. They were well set with careers in engineering and teaching ahead of them.
But Hayley had always envisaged opening a shop. It was a long-held dream and the pair were firmly of the opinion that you should have no regrets, so they decided to leave their faster pace of life in Birmingham and move to Shropshire to open up home and lifestyle store All the Seasons.
The move was born from a desire to live a slower life and now, having set up in the heart of Ludlow, the pair are loving their days and are excited by the future.
“We both had fast-paced lives and things were hectic,” says Nick. “We had our career path in front of us – with a nice stable salary – but we weren’t sure if we wanted to do what we were doing for another ten or 20 years.
“You can obviously go down the safe route and, only being in our 20s, this felt like a huge risk but Hayley had always wanted a shop to be part of her future. She wanted to open a lifestyle boutique one day and had so many ideas and things she wants to promote. And, so we decided to go for it."
“The last few years have been such a terrible time for everyone with Covid, a cost-of-living crisis and more. That impressed on us that you can’t sit around and wait and hope for something better. You have to go out and take your chance. It gave us a motivation to change our lives.
“We are country people and wanted to return to a quieter way of life and do something meaningful."