LGBT

Exclusive: The first residents of this pioneering scheme tell Patrick Strudwick why they needed to spend their final chapter among their own community.

“It affected his communication centre,” says Min. “That was the last time I conversed with Tim as he was. “We discussed how we wanted to end our life,” he says. “I still have that ticket,” he says. “And when I walk out of the building in the morning, and I see the river in front of me, I go for a little wander along the embankment, and I just have this waaaaaahhhhhh! “Tim had a stroke in February 2020,” says Min. By then the couple had been together for 40 years. “I was looking on the net one day, sort of fantasising. “I was extremely proud of him.” But when it came to his own daughter? “The idea that I was the first was more than exciting,” says Lydia, pushing up her tinted glasses. “I fell in love with a woman and realised why my earlier life had not been very successful,” she says, laughing. “And then in May I was diagnosed with lung cancer,” she says. “On the doorstep was a big white package with a rainbow ribbon,” says the 74-year-old. “They removed half my lung.” In the September, the retirement community officially opened, and by December she was in.