The name of the newly-established residential scheme for older people is Faradise Park, so the place is Almost Paradise except ... People, being human, have frailties, and these particular people, being older, have accumulated many frailties, problems, experiences. Add to that the resentful villagers who, although they failed to qualify, would like to be residents themselves and there is a little less of Paradise and a little more of the Other Place. Problems or not, the residents endeavour to have fun, to enjoy life and to overcome the persistent resentful actions on the part of one villager. Every housing scheme for older people has a Scheme Manager, the name of the Faradise Park manager is Caroline Dean. She lives in the village, has never done the job before, or indeed any job except working in a shoe shop. Caroline is well-meaning and claims to "love old people" even though she knows little about them. The liveliness of the residents disappoints her. They are not, in her eyes, most of them, really old. The story is set in the rolling, beech-covered, chalk hills of South East England, almost paradise in it's own way.