Britain’s Samaritans Offer a Hot Line and an Ear to the Lonely, Bereaved, Suicidal

When Chad Varah, a young, energetic Church of England priest, decided to start a suicide hot line in 1953, he knew it would need a distinctive number.

Newly assigned a church still under repair from bombing during World War II, Varah dug through rubble to find the telephone, then called the operator to ask if the number could be changed.

Any desperate caller could remember “Mansion House 9000,” he thought.

What number was he calling from, the operator asked.

Varah wet a finger to wipe the dust from the dial. He slowly read the number out--Mansion House 9000.

The coincidence encouraged Varah to go ahead with what has become one of the world’s best-established suicide hot lines--the Samaritans. The group now has 22,000 volunteers across Britain who give several hours a week to listen to society’s most isolated--the suicidal, the lonely, and the bereaved.

The Samaritans have spun off an international branch, the Befrienders, with 30,000 volunteers in 24 countries.

But its success is a bit out of hand. The Samaritans are launching an appeal for 11,000 more volunteers to deal with calls, which topped 2.5 million in 1989.

“There isn’t a problem or a situation you can imagine that I haven’t dealt with,” volunteer Shawn Grinter said. “I’ve laughed, I’ve cried, I’ve prayed, I’ve sung.”

Samaritans are sworn to tell nothing about the calls they take, but tacitly indicate that callers include those recently widowed or divorced, murderers and even child molesters.

Volunteers provide what is called “constructive listening” during which they try to encourage a caller to talk without letting their personal feelings interfere.

“There are some people who want to be interventionists,” said Linda, a volunteer in London who, in keeping with normal Samaritan policy, did not give her surname.

“They want to put it right. . . . We have to get across to the volunteers that we can’t do that.”

Norman, another volunteer, said callers are not looking for opinions. “If they sensed any censoriousness in you, they’d flee,” he said.

“No problem is too trivial,” spokesman Paul Farmer said. “It might be an elderly lady calling up to say her pet dog died. That sounds ordinary, but that might be her only contact. You might find out that six months ago that person’s husband died.”

Volunteers used to be forbidden to tell anyone they were Samaritans, Grinter said, partly to keep their privacy and partly to screen out the “do-gooder” element--those who want to brag about “what a good thing they are doing.” But the policy was dropped, not least because volunteers had trouble explaining to spouses where they were going for four hours a week.

Prospective volunteers go through between six and eight four-hour training sessions at the local offices from which Samaritans branches operate.

“The people we feel aren’t suitable tend to self-select out,” Grinter said. “By and large the people we have to reject are those we feel the Samaritans would be too much for.”

But founder Varah stresses that volunteers have no particular expertise.

“Only about one in eight callers need therapy,” he said. “The other seven just need listening. I call this form of therapy ‘befriending.’ All you need are good-hearted people.”

The calls can be difficult for even the most good-hearted, however, so a volunteer is always on duty to support the others.

“If a volunteer takes a particularly difficult call, they are given the opportunity to offload at any time,” Linda said.

That is partly to guard the privacy of callers. “It is quite important not to need to take calls home with you,” Farmer said.

“The confidentiality is absolutely paramount,” Linda added.

The guaranteed confidentiality is credited for the success of the organization. The number of new calls--from people who have never contacted the organization before--increased by 56% between 1979 and 1989.