TWELVE months ago Kerry Evans, her husband Duncan and three children Christopher, 13, Jacob, seven and six-year-old daughter Chloe, originally from Macclesfield, upped sticks and moved to Shetland. They wanted a quieter, safer more peaceful way of life and the move was filmed by the BBC. Here Kerry explains their reasons for moving and the reality of what they found...

WHAT makes a family uproot and move hundreds of miles from one end of the country to another? For us, like most, it was a combination of reasons, but avoiding crime and feeling safe was a major one.

Our second family home was in Macclesfield, a nice three-bedroom semi in a pleasant enough town with a garage and overlooking terraced houses.

I liked its proximity to Manchester, loved shopping in the city and at the Trafford Centre and going to restaurants and eating out. But, increasingly, I was scared. Worried by the drunks I saw on the streets when I came out of the cinema and always afraid of being attacked as I made my way to the train.

And although Macclesfield is not particularly rough, youths would gather outside our house and overturn flower pots. When our car was stolen and found burned out in central Manchester it was the final straw.

We made a strange move to Clacton, Essex, where we bought a huge six-bedroom house. We stayed for a year before Duncan became sick of commuting into London each day for his job as a magazine editor and we both became increasingly worried about terrorist's attacks.We wanted a safe house and looked again at Cheshire, but because prices had gone so high we were unable to find anything the size we needed for the money we had.

The other big reason for going somewhere remote was the fact that two of our three children are autistic.

The boys have no concept of danger and suffer from sensory overload, and we needed to live and enjoy everyday life somewhere away from busy roads and people.

When you're moving house it's a transient feeling; you feel uprooted from all you know. Stressed by the inability to find anything packed away in boxes and apprehensive of the changes that await you. That's what it's like having autism. It's like moving house every day of your life because of the way your brain is wired and the way you perceive the world.

So, we looked further north - much further - and after scouring the Highlands of Scotland, we found East House, in Grobsness, Shetland.

It has stone walls six feet thick, lots of beams and lots of space - four bedrooms and three living rooms inside and outside acres and acres of wonderful landscape with views to the sea. It cost us £110,000 and although getting things done, like installing a new kitchen, seems to take forever because everything has to be brought in by boat, it is a magical place.

The best thing, though, was the attitude of the local education authority. We enrolled Chris at the high school in Lerwick. Within 48 hours of them realising how bad his condition is, they had got funding for a new specialist unit for him, which has been built at the boarding school wing of Anderson High School, and features three rooms, plus a toilet.

He has a work room with computer, kitchen, oven and desk; a cleaning and potting area for his garden stuff, and a relaxation room with lights, TV, video and sensory gear. He also has a garden area to himself and one of the teachers is also on hand to take him out in the car.

Needless to say, he loves the new regime. Chris is being educated alone for the most part, but he receives visits and mixed activities from pupils at his original school at Bells Brae.

Teachers take him to the shops and he is to have trips to the swimming pool.

So, strangely, we find ourselves in the position that the only way we could get the same level of respite and medical care we had for our children in Cheshire was to move to the most remote part of the UK!

I miss the shopping opportunities at the Trafford Centre. There are no fast food chains here, and I have to travel 200 miles by boat or plane to Aberdeen to buy the children affordable clothing.

I loved the giant Toys R' Us mega stores in Stockport. The children had everything from electric cars to playhouses. Now, we make do with two small local toyshops or what we can buy on E-bay. It's good for my daughter, Chloe, six, as it will make her less materialistic.

Yesterday, we explored a beach called Sand with clean, calm water and pile-ups of seaweed rather than traffic jams. Chloe also benefits from the much smaller class sizes. There are only 20 children in her class now.

As I stare out my window at sheep grazing and the rolling hills that surround us, our days in Cheshire seem a distant dream. We are remote, we have been snowed in for days on end and had to have food delivered by sledge, but everything is so laid back here, the pace is so much slower, you seem to have more time to appreciate everyone and everything.

Kerry is busy writing a book - called Marooned - which gives details of their family life in Cheshire. And you can see the Evans family moving to Shetland in the BBC 2 documentary series, Safe as Houses, due to be screened at 8pm onTuesday, April 20.

Kerry can be contacted by e-mail at kerry3E@aol.com Tweet