Reversing the brain drain: why coronavirus could stop graduates moving to London | Rachel Connolly

This mass experiment in home working could mean young people no longer have to move to the south-east for jobs

My grandma, who lives in Derry, had never been to England until last year, so it was a great honour when she made the trip to London to visit me and my sister, who have both lived on the mainland (in one city or another) for the best part of a decade. We had great craic" during her stay. We went to the big art galleries and museums, which everyone in the UK helps fund through their taxes, but many never get to visit; she accidentally attended a pro-Brexit protest; and she charmed the waiter of a pizza restaurant with what she calls her Derry eyes", striking because of their unusual blue and orange-yellow irises, which she has passed down to my mum, my siblings and me. She wore a lime green suit for the duration of her stay, like a very elegant leprechaun.

That was almost a year ago and I haven't seen her in person since. I'm always a bit jealous of people for whom family get-togethers like these aren't a rarity. As they are for many young people in the UK who grew up outside of the economic hub of the south-east, the job prospects in the region where I'm from are, shall we say, not great. So, like many young people, I moved away for university, then to London for work, and now my life feels awkwardly spread across several versions of home. I don't see most of my family as much as I'd like and I feel like I move every few years for reasons not totally within my control. Now that a pandemic has prompted this mass experiment in working from home, I have been thinking more about whether it has to be this way.

Related: The pandemic has exposed the failings of Britain's centralised state | John Harris