MOVING STORIES
‘I’m a Londoner who wanted to be mayor but couldn’t afford to live there’
Samuel Kasumu moved to Essex because of high house prices — a move that did not help his career bid
Samuel Kasumu in Westminster, central London
LEWIS PATRICK/PALASSOCIATES
The Times
I think of myself as a Londoner (says Samuel Kasumu, 36). I’ve lived in north, south, east and west London. I was born in Paddington, then moved to Leyton. The first home I remember was a council house in East Dulwich. Then I grew up in Barnet, before I went to university in west London.
The capital was all I knew. I always had an aspiration to buy a home close to where I grew up. And yet when I got married at 24 my wife and I couldn’t afford it.
In 2013 my wife and I were renting a two-bedroom flat in a mansion house in Tufnell Park, north London, when our landlord put it up for sale for £700,000. At the time
