While huge swathes of Londoners have moved to Kent during the pandemic, one woman went against the flow.

Writing in the Guardian, novelist Laura Barton describes life on the county's coast as "cliquish, gossipy and parochial".

Having moved from London to Thanet in 2014, she decided last spring it was high time for her return, and as others were vying to escape to the country she "escaped back to the city".

Kent has long been a popular destination for so-called DFLs - "down from Londons".

As house prices soared last year, leading estate agencies cited the scores of Londoners relocating to the county as being a driving factor.

The attractions, particularly as Covid has sparked a surge in home-working, are clear.

Many are keen - as Barton describes in somewhat parodic terms - to swap poky London flats for houses "with enough room for chickens and rainbow chard", or else dream of "moving to Thanet and taking up early morning sea-swimming".

But her love of life on the coast had been "fading for some while" when she realised this year she "absolutely had to get out".

"As more and more people moved down from London, talking, endlessly, about the fact that they had left London, some days I could barely breathe with the sheer suburbanness of it all," she writes.

"Everywhere hung the air of self-congratulation.

"It was cliquish, and gossipy, and parochial – I don’t think I’ve felt so excluded, or so sneered-at, since I was at secondary school."

Barton, a journalist and writer who has authored novels including Twenty-One Locks, says she lived in both Ramsgate and Westgate-on-Sea during her time on the Kent coast.

But while she found these to be "nice places", she wrote on Twitter: "My criticisms are really aimed at Margate, which was sort of the Death Star of Thanet for me".

In her Guardian article, she goes on to describe the elements of London life she sorely missed while living in Kent, such as her friends, and the capital's multiculturalism, fast pace, and plethora of galleries, theatres and restaurants.

"More than anything I missed people who talked about things other than themselves," she continued.

Barton shared the article on Twitter today, prompting others to share their own experiences of moving from London to Kent.

One Twitter user named Xanthe wrote: "Not a moment went by from the day I arrived in E[ast] Kent when I didn't feel like a fish out of water.

"Counted the days till we left and kissed the city streets when I got back HOME. As part of life's rich tapestry though - was good to experience being outside the London bubble."

Also sympathising with Barton's experience was Bernard Doherty, who wrote: "Anne and I were tempted to get out of Greenwich pre lockdown but three or four reconnaissance trips to Kent and overheard chats in bars was enough - er no ta".

But another user named Sean Farrell said his experience moving to the county has been wholly different.

He wrote: "We moved to Ramsgate in 2014. On the whole I like it and we try not to be DFLs."

Charlie Phillips, head of video at the Guardian who relocated to Folkestone, praised Barton's article adding: "I’m genuinely happy having moved here, but it’s good to know that it’s reversible in case that changes."