The National Life Story Collection

NATIONAL LIFE STORY COLLECTION Pioneers in Charity and Social Welfare Collection Sponsored by J Paul Getty Jnr Charitable Trust Chad Varah interviewed by Niamh Dillon Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 2 C1155/03/01 F16660A NATIONAL LIFE STORY COLLECTION INTERVIEW SUMMARY SHEET Title Page Ref. No.: C1155/03/01-4 Playback No.: F16660-F16663 Collection title: Pioneers in Charity and Social Welfare Interviewee’s surname: Varah Title: Mr Interviewee’s forenames: Chad Sex: M Occupation: Founder of Samaritans Date of birth: 12.11.1911 Mother’s occupation: Housewife Father’s occupation: Anglican Minister Date(s) of recording: 09.12.2004, 05.01.2005 Location of interview: Interviewee’s Home Name of interviewer: Niamh Dillon Type of recorder: Marantz CP430 Total no. of tapes: 4 Type of tape: D60 Mono or stereo: Stereo Speed: N/A Noise reduction: Dolby B Original or copy: Original Additional material: Copyright/Clearance: Interviewer’s comments: Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 3 C1155/03/01 F16660A [F16660 Side A] So if I can just start by asking your name? My name is Edward Chad Varah and I’m ninety-three. I was born on the twelfth of November 1911, the eldest son of my father who was vicar of Barton-on-Humber, and I was the oldest of nine children. And can I ask the origin of your name? What? Can I ask the origin of your name? … Well Edward is the family name – Anglo Saxon means ‘strong guard’. Chad is the name of the saint who established the church in Barton where I was born and baptised. He has an interesting story, Chad. He, he was one of twelve heathen boys who were captured in battle with the King of Northumbria, who was Christian, and he came from Mercia which was heathen and the King Offa, Offa, King of Mercia and… the twelve heathen boys who were captured were brought before the King and they enquired mercifully, ‘Shall we put them to the sword?’ I say mercifully, because that was not the worst thing that could happen. So, St Aidan was standing by and he said, ‘Not so, my lord the King. Give them unto me and I shall bring them up as my own sons and then send them back to convert their own people’. And of the twelve, we hear no more of any except three; Chad and his brother Cedd and Winfred, his brother. We hear about them because they became apostles in various parts of the country and Chad was eventually Bishop of Lichfield. And what’s the origin of the name Varah? Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 4 C1155/03/01 F16660A We don’t know for certain… but… there was a name of some Slav peoples which was pronounced Variach and in the history books they’re called the Varahnians [ph]. We don’t know for certain that these are the people who turned up in western Yorkshire in the seventh century, but where else would they have come from with a name like Variach. And where was your father from? Yorkshire. And could you just describe your first childhood home? Yes. …My father was married at a late age – I think he was forty-nine when I was born and it was a love marriage… He fell in love with a girl who came to apply for a job as a housekeeper and had been brought up by a prim aunt and uncle and wanted to escape and so… she advertised in the Church Times I think it was, for a housekeeper or companion’s job. My father answered. When he opened the door and saw her, he said, ‘You cannot enter, you cannot come in here. You shall stay with my church warden, Mr and Mrs Carter. I will take you there’. And she said to these very nice people, the Carters, ‘This is a rather peculiar reception. Can you explain the meaning of it?’ So Mrs Carter said, ‘Well I imagine he fancies you’. [laughs] ‘And you are very pretty.’ ‘Oh’, she said. …Anyway, a story with a happy ending. He proposed to her and married her and she had nine children by him, of whom I’m the eldest. And how old was she when she married him? How old…? How old was she? When she got married. Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 5 C1155/03/01 F16660A I think twenty-one. She had to wait until she was of age before she could escape from the rich and unkind relations she’d been planted with. So… And can you remember what the house looked like? Whose house? Your childhood house. I’ve got a photo of it somewhere. The house in which I was born was the vicarage at Barton-on-Humber and it was quite a pretentious house. It now has a plaque on it saying I was born there. [laughs] My father was the vicar of Barton-on-Humber and when I was born in 1911, he was rather rich because he had saved up all his life and he was now at forty-nine. Then came the war and… from being extremely comfortably off in 1911 or ten, when they were married, everybody suffered because of the war. [telephone rings] [break in recording] We were talking about your father’s finances being affected by the First World War. Oh yes. So when my father married my mother, who escaped from a wealthy and horrid uncle and aunt, he was at first a suitable match, but then later things became difficult, but by then they were in love and I’m the oldest of the nine children she bore him. But of course now that I know what I do know – I was one of England’s first sex therapists – I can feel very sorry for my mother because in those days they didn’t know about contraception, or few of them did, and so it was understood that on marriage the husband should bounce on the wife every night and know nothing whatever about contraception and that’s why they tended to have nine children. Do you think she would have had less children if she’d had the option of contraception? How can I possibly know that? Nobody can possibly know what choice people would have made if they’d had one, they didn’t. Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 6 C1155/03/01 F16660A Did you ever get a sense that it was hard for her though, having nine children? Well it was what happened to everybody. She was lucky… to be upper middle class. Did she have any help in the house? Oh yes, but of course it got less and less as the war went on. When I was born we had two indoor servants and four outdoor, including a coachman and everything was pretty prosperous. But anyway, I’m the eldest of nine. And so what happened to your father’s finances during the war? …I think they, I think he and my mother employed only one washerwoman type for the dirty work and my mother did the rest. And I think my father did the garden. Talking of the garden, I’d better go and water it. Oh okay. [break in recording] Talking about your father during the First World War, as your father’s finances got a bit more difficult, did you and your brothers and sisters have to help around the house? Did we have…? Did you, would you help in the house? We did, but as the war progressed, the children grew up and were able to help more. So were there any particular things that you used to do in the house? Help to look after the younger ones. I was a boy and then there were three girls, and then two boys, and so I was a sort of additional parent. Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 7 C1155/03/01 F16660A So what kind of things would you have to do to help look after them? It’s all so long ago. [pause] And who would do the cooking at home? Cooking? My mother was an excellent cook and she used to bake bread every day except Sunday. Oh and her new cakes, oooh. She was a real Yorkshire woman and of course the girls were expected to be brought up to be good wives in the future. However, as an academic family, all nine children had a public school education. So where did you go to school? Worksop. And at what age did you leave to go to school? Thirteen. My youngest brother went to [inaudible]. The other two boys also went to Worksop, but I didn’t have much to do with them. …Well they were ‘new bugs’. And I was a school prefect. And where did your sisters go to school? St Hilda’s, Whitby. All five of them. And before you went to Worksop, where had you gone to school? …To the local church school, but they had to make an extra class for me because I knew too much to go in standard seven. So they made a class ‘X Seven’ for me. So were you taught on your own? Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 8 C1155/03/01 F16660A No, I was part of the school, but… And what kind of a parish was Barton-on-Humber? A small market town, six thousand people, with two parish churches within a stone’s throw of one another, for reasons unknown, and another one down by the river Humber, a mission church, at which my father made me practise preaching, taking services.

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