Seismic life changes can happen in the blink of an eye. And it was a chance meeting that led Joel Wood on a 200-mile journey from west London to a new life in Yorkshire.
Wood was brought up in Southampton but moved to London aged 20 to study at RADA. After he graduated he stayed on, building a portfolio career as an actor, voiceover artist, and content creator (@joelwood).
In 2021 he got around the problem of London’s sky high property prices by buying a two-bedroom house in Putney Heath with a friend.
Then fate took a hand. “I had a podcast at the time and Keegan Hirst, an ex-professional rugby league player and the first professional player to come out, was a guest,” says Wood, now 33.
“It was on Zoom but we got chatting and eventually we went on our first date.”
During that initial date Hirst, 37, who now runs a coaching business, explained that since he has two children he would never be able to move away from Yorkshire.
“I was already thinking about moving out of London to somewhere I could get a bit more space, so I said that was fine,” says Wood.
“It happened a bit sooner than it would have done if I’d not met Keegan – I had another five years in me – but I’m really glad it happened.”
In January 2023 Wood sobbed his way through the long drive to the village of Shelf, near Halifax, where Hirst owns a five-bedroom detached home.
A key worry for both of them was how their respective dogs – Wood’s cocker spaniel Ava, and Hirst’s Italian greyhound Fen – would react to cohabiting. “Luckily they love each other,” says Wood.
The couple are now in the process of buying a new house together. Wood’s co-owner has also moved out of London to live with a partner so the house has been rented out for about a year, and is for sale for £600,000.
Hirst has just accepted an offer on his house – despite dwarfing Joel’s terrace it sold for £485,000. This means the couple will probably rent for a while, until the London house is sold. They plan to stay local.
Life in Shelf is considerably more peaceful than London, all country walks and pub suppers, although Joel does come down once or twice a month for work. The train journey takes an acceptable two hours from Wakefield.
The only fly in the ointment has been leaving friends and family behind in the south and trying to build a new network from scratch.
“That is the hardest part,” says Wood. “I don’t have an office job or the school gates. At first I made friends with lots of Keegan’s friends. I have also made friends with a subscriber to my YouTube channel who came up to me in a coffee shop because he recognised me.
“That has led to a friendship with him and his partner, and I am very proud that I have managed to make a friend of my own.”
