Hotline

Let's meet an interesting person:  Until his recent death from a stroke in Basingstoke, England, the Rev. Chad Varah, an Anglican priest. served as a guide and counselor to the needy. He often said that loneliness is the most heart-rending anguish, and he died recently in Basingstoke, England. He left this world aged 95.

His charity was called Samaritans and they existed to assist the cause of suicide prevention. If not the first, his hotline was certainly among the first, and it serves yet as a model worldwide. Samaritans has 200 branches in England and Ireland and several hundred more in some 38 countries. 

As a young (23) deacon in 1935, it fell on Father Varah to conduct the funeral service for a girl who was 13 or 14 at the time of her suicide. She ended her life, because she concluded that the onset of her first menstrual cycle meant she had a venereal disease.

Looking back in 1959, Fr. Varah said, “Here was a life that could have been saved if only there had been an intelligent person she could bring herself to talk to."

Early in his priesthood, Fr. Varah saw dozens of cases of people so distraught over sexual issues that they considered suicide. In those days, there was an average of three suicides daily in London.

So he began to envision a way for people in the throes of despair to get help, and he hit on the idea of a telephone line linking them to help.

In 1953, he became the rector of St. Stephen Walbrook in London. Oddly enough, this church had but one parishioner: the lord mayor. That's a ceremonial title that carries no responsibilities beyond a) pomp and b) circumstance. With so little to do, Father Varah had tons of time to devote himself to what he called “the parish of despair.”

Father Varah

He found an unused phone, which had survived German bombs, and set up "Mansion House 9000" as the hotline number for help.

As the service grew in popularity, the Daily Mirror newspaper gave it its name of "Samaritans," although Father Varah forbade all religious teaching and preaching in helping desperate clients. Also forbidden: telling the police anything that a client divulged in confidence. Eventually, he changed the name of the organization to Befrienders Worldwide.

I find it most interesting that Father Varah augmented his income by writing (not drawing) for comic strips.

And that, in order to help clients keep day-to-day problems in perspective, he would repeat his mantra: "It doesn't matter." He believed in reincarnation, so he did not fear death.

Well, neither do I, but, just...when the time comes, that's all. Don't rush it.