We left Spain to come to France

Leaving Spain was a lifestyle choice for retired couple Paul and Nancy Crook.

The couple owned a house in Andalucia but found the area, for all its natural beauty, was full of the "wrong type" of expat Brits.

They also said there was an "unhappy" atmosphere in the British community, which they say was dominated by a heavy drinking culture and was frequently the focus of enterprising Spanish thieves.

Mrs Crook, 59, said: "In Spain we were lumped in with a bunch of British expats and there were big problems.

“These people were being taken advantage of by the local criminal community. People's homes were being robbed after tip-offs and they were being observed.

“We found this disturbing.

“There was also so much drunkenness, people lying around in the street after drinking far too much.

"It is a beautiful place but the Spanish were horrified by what the Brits were doing to it, so we decided to leave.”

Mrs Crook and her husband, 72, were determined to quit Spain but did not want to settle in the UK again long-term.

They sold their house in 2003 and drove to England through France - and fell in love with the country.

Last year they left the UK and settled in Yvignac-La-Tour near Saint-Malo in Brittany, where they live with two of their children.

Mr Crook (pictured), a former principal tenor at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, said: "The British in Spain just wanted to get drunk every night.

This behaviour hardly endeared themselves to the local population.The situation in France is very different.

There simply isn't the setup here for that kind of behaviour and the police here are much stricter. This is a much more civilised place."

Photo: Crook family