A young couple have told the heart-warming story of how they were able to save up for a London flat deposit with almost no parental help – simply by living in a garden shed for seven years and subsisting off residual moisture in its roofing beams.

David Smyth, 29, and his girlfriend Zoe Lynch, 28, have lived in the wooden structure – built in the back-garden of Lynch’s parents home in Hemel Hempstead – since they graduated from university back in 2013.

And the couple, who have recently bought a £750,000 studio apartment in Ilford with just a small supplemetary loan from Smyth’s mother, hope that their inspirational story shows others from their generation that the dream of home ownership is attainable.

“People say that it’s impossible to ever even think of owning a home in London these days, but I think our story proves that just isn’t the case”, said David, who works as a fund manager.

“I’m not saying there’s no sacrifice involved, of course there is – there were several mornings when I was sucking the moisture out of those beams that I longed for the refreshing swill of some nice hormone infested London tap water, but by not paying a Thames Water bill for seven years, we’ve actually saved quite a bit of cash – and if you want to eventually pay for a deposit, can you really afford not to do that?”

“Others our age want you to believe that the cutbacks that are necessary to buy a house are excessive, but try telling that to our parents’ – their generation would likely have dreamed of living in a shed when they were fighting in both World Wars, living through the Black Death and resisting the army of Breton soldiers during the first Norman Crisis, all without any avocados on toast.”

And Smyth added that his partner Zoe, who was too weak to complete an interview with The London Gonzo, had been prepared to go through more than most to purchase a property, having suffered from scurvy, chronic anemia and several other nutrition-based diseases as a result of living off only beam mositure for seven years.

But he said that she found the sacrifice “all worth it” when she crawled into their newly bought east London home for the first time last week.

Image: Elgaard