Cafe combating loneliness is like 'adopted family'

Cafes including tables specifically for people to sit and chat with strangers are being expanded to twenty extra venues in the South East. The cafes, including seven more in Berkshire, will set aside a weekly "chatty table" which is a designated area where people are explicitly invited to sit and socialise. A chatty cafe aims is to make social interactions feel more normal and easier, particularly for people who may feel isolated. Diana Williams 74, who is a member of the chatty cafe in Sonning, said: "The first day I entered the doors, I never felt so welcome in all my life. I never thought I would be with people again and to be alone after you've lost your partner is very very difficult." The chatty cafe launched in the UK in 2017 but grew post-pandemic. Williams was widowed in 2019 after 50 years of marriage just before the Covid pandemic and had to go through lockdown alone, with her son being her social bubble. The chatty cafe started at Berkshire County Sports Club in Sonning in January last year. Williams now calls the members her "adopted family". She added "I could go weeks and weeks in seeing nobody other than the ladies and gentlemen in the supermarket and I am so gratef