Did I mention we have a chess club in the library? Surprisingly the retired friends who play in the library before going for their weekly lunch are not members.

There’s no gender rule, but all the current members of the chess club are male, ranging in age from late teens to one man who must be at least eighty. He arrives, on his mobility scooter, every last Tuesday of the month and slowly makes his way up the stairs, using his cane. I watch him from wherever I am when he arrives. I’m terrified he will fall on the stairs and we will become known as the library that killed an innocent chess-playing pensioner. He wears a dapper grey trilby and always says thank you when he’s leaving.

They play in the reference section rather than the community room as they need smaller tables, no...

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