Chapter 3

The chapter shifts from the club’s meeting to a broad introduction of Coopers Chase and its location in the Kentish Weald. The narrator describes the winding route from Fairhaven through villages, rural landmarks, and narrow roads to the retirement village’s entrance.

Coopers Chase is explained as a luxury retirement village built on land sold by the Catholic Church about ten years earlier. It has around 300 residents, including Ron among its earliest arrivals, and is marketed as exclusive despite Ibrahim’s correction that it was not truly Britain’s first such village.

The old convent remains the centre of the development, though much of its religious life has been replaced by amenities for residents. Former dormitories, refectories, and corridors now sit alongside a swimming pool, therapy pool, sauna, gym, recreation rooms, library, lounge, and restaurant.

The chapel, attached to the convent, remains largely unchanged because of sale covenants and is valued by residents for its atmosphere and history. Ian Ventham, the owner, is nevertheless investigating loopholes that might allow him to convert it into more flats, revealing a tension between preservation and profit.

The chapter also explains Willows, the attached nursing home, which began as a charitable hospital run by the Sisters of the Holy Church before becoming a care home and eventually part of the retirement complex. The grounds include woodland, hills, lakes, ducks, geese, sheep, and a herd of llamas that began as a sales-photo gimmick and multiplied.