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.
And what age were you when you started doing that?
Mm?
What age were you when you started doing that, when you started practising?
I suppose sixteen. But I’ve always been grateful for that experience, because I had sometimes been to services other than those taken by my father or his curate, but not very often, so I didn’t know that it was okay just to work out in your mind what you wanted to say and then lean over the pulpit and say it to them, as if instructing a crowd of unruly children, except they weren’t unruly. That beginning - I’d never intended to become a parson - but that beginning was quite useful because I knew how to take a service and I wasn’t shy about preaching and I didn’t make any notes. I just prepared carefully in my mind and then let rip.
And what was your father’s style of preaching?
What was his side?
What was his style of preaching? How did your father prepare to give sermons?
…He just talked to the congregation as if he were their father. And I couldn’t quite do that, but… oh dear, this is such a long time ago.
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 9 C1155/03/01 F16660A
And what were your father’s hopes for you in terms of a career?
…He hoped I would follow in his footsteps, but I was a scientist and had no intention of doing so, so that was hard for him to bear. But at school, I was only interested in science and mathematics and won a scholarship to Oxford.
So what did you hope to become?
What did I…?
Sorry, what did you hope to become?
Well some kind of scientist.
And was there a particular area that interested you more than another?
Chemistry. [pause]
And so how did you eventually decide to join the church?
Sorry?
How did you eventually decide to join the church?
…Of course we don’t talk about joining the church when you’re already in it. …Well I was very much influenced by a retired missionary bishop, John Edward Hine, formerly Bishop of Zanzibar and of other places in Africa and he’d gone out as a medical doctor and so I couldn’t possibly regard him as non-scientific, but he was a doctor of medicine and had other doctorates as well. [pause]
So, what subject did you study at university?
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 10 C1155/03/01 F16660A
…First was chemistry and then, because I got sick of being locked up in laboratories doing experiments in German, I switched to philosophy, politics and economics and… I went up to Keble College Oxford with a scholarship, and so I wore a long gown and sat at the smallest table and so forth. [pause]
And how did you enjoy your time there?
I loved it. But I didn’t do much work, I just enjoyed Oxford.
So what did you enjoy most about it?
[pause] Well in my own college and in other colleges, there were kindred spirits. And some of them as clever as I.
And so what did you do once you left university?
…Dear old Bishop Hine said to me, ‘Chad, you’re wasting your life’. ‘You’ve had your try at being a scientist.’ I was taken on by a friend of mine who owned a…
[End of F16660 Side A]
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 11 C1155/03/01 F16660B
[F16660 Side B]
…and different kinds of Humberside clay and what bricks could be made out of them. And eventually Alec and I – Alec Eldridge who was the… chief employee at the brickworks – worked out a plan saving millions of pounds by making bricks out of a whole lot of clay that we thought was useless, and it wasn’t. And we went to the two bosses, the two brothers Franks, and outlined the scheme for a new type of brick production using a new type of [inaudible] so forth, and made it clear to them that there was the possibility of making better bricks from the clay they thought was worthless with this new method we’d come across, we devised. At the end they said, ‘Eh lads, very interesting. Ah, but we don’t think we’ll bother’.
So what was your reaction to that?
Well, you can imagine that… there wasn’t anything I could do. However, you’re asking me to go back to a period when I can’t really remember much.
So where did you go after the brickworks?
I was persuaded by Bishop Hine, the retired missionary bishop who befriended me, to go to theological college in Lincoln and from there I was ordained and became curate of a new housing estate in Lincoln.
And can you describe what your parish was like?
Mm?
Can you describe what your parish in Lincoln was like?
It was a new housing estate, all new houses built about the same time and needing to be made into a community and I thought that was worth trying, so I did that.
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 12 C1155/03/01 F16660B
And how did you try and make it into a community?
What?
How did you try and make it into a community?
[pause] Well I wasn’t the vicar, I was the curate and I ran a youth club for the boys and girls. I taught them the facts of life and this made me very popular. They never thought they could ask a question, any question they liked of this young parson and get a truthful answer, rather shocking.
And what was their parents’ reaction to you talking to them about the facts of life?
You don’t suppose they mentioned it to their parents.
Were their parents aware of it though?
I shouldn’t think so. They just knew that they were very ready to go to school and made good progress. That was at St Giles, Lincoln.
And at that point, was sex education taught in schools?
No, but I began doing it. [pause] I began taking sex education seriously. I remember one day, my vicar who was a rather unacademic man, but very fond of me and trusted me… he had a couple of very prim parishioners come to him one day and say to him, ‘Vicar, that there young curate o’ thine is gathering young couples in Mrs Orme’s front room and talking dirty to ‘em and it’s got to stop’.
And so what did he do about that?
He told me what had been said. I said, ‘Well I’ll stop if you want me to’. ‘Of course I don’t want you to! I couldn’t do it myself and I’m glad you can.’ [laughs] I was also Chaplain at the prison. Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 13 C1155/03/01 F16660B
And at that time, if young people wanted to find out about sex education, was there anywhere they could go?
My youth club.
But apart from your youth club, was there anywhere else?
[laughing] No. I’d better go and spend a penny.
Sorry, let me just turn this off.
[break in recording]
I’m now ninety-three, you’re asking me to go back to when I was twenty-three and the world was different and I was a pioneer at all times.
Well that’s why I think it’s really important to record as much as possible of what you can remember.
Yes.
But if you find it difficult, we can move on and talk more about the things that you do remember better.
No. I think I can sum up by saying I had always thought of myself as a scientist and now that I was somehow landed with being in the church, largely through the good influences of Bishop Hine, I found that the advantage of being a scientist when you’re a parson was you could speak with authority, because somebody would quote at you some idiot thing that somebody had said and you could reply, ‘That’s stupid, that’s not scientific at all’. There was a great yearning after truly reasonable teaching about religion and I was very happy to satisfy that.
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 14 C1155/03/01 F16660B
So what kind of thing did you find that young people at the youth club would come to you and ask about?
What kind of…?
What kind of things would you find that young people were coming to you and asking about?
…Well I didn’t leave it to them, they wouldn’t have dared. You can’t imagine how isolated and treated with respect the clergy were in those days, so I didn’t wait for them to ask, I told them.
And what kind of things would you talk to them about?
…To boys about the forbidden subject; masturbation.
And why was it forbidden?
…Well, people regarded it as a sin, some of them as the only sin. And I said it wasn’t a sin at all.
And what would you talk to the girls about?
About not undervaluing themselves. Don’t let their boys use them.
And d’you think that was something that happened a lot?
Yes. As long as you kept girls down, they were falling over backwards to please the boys. And I mean backwards. ‘Don’t undervalue yourselves’ I said. …Talking to you like this doesn’t really give a flavour of what it was like. Imagine you’re a girl in… in a mixed class… and you’ve never had anybody talk to you frankly in plain language before… You’d say, ‘What do the boys want you to do that you think is wrong?’. ‘Well, they want Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 15 C1155/03/01 F16660B to put it in.’ ‘And suppose you let them, and suppose you become pregnant? What d’you want them to do then, ditch you? Or marry you?’ They’d never thought of these things.
And what would happen if they did become pregnant?
I said, ‘If you want to be kind to a boy and you say no, he can’t pop it in, you can offer to help him with your hand. Or even, hush hush, with your mouth’. ‘Ooh, how shocking.’ ‘D’you suppose it would be nice for the boy?’ ‘Yeah, I suppose.’
And did they find it easy to come and talk to you about these things?
Did they…?
Did they find it easy to come and talk to you about these things?
Yeah, because I spoke in plain language. I didn’t talk as though this was a horrible, hush hush subject. Something which everybody ought to know.
What do you think the attitude towards sex amongst young people was at that time?
Nobody ever told them the truth. Except me.
And why d’you think that was?
I think because the church was dominated by elderly people who didn’t want any trouble from the young. And so if in doubt, don’t do it.
And do you think their parents talked to them about sex?
…Difficult to know, because of course by the nature of it, I was telling them things their parents ought to have told them and didn’t, so they could hardly go and criticise their parents. But I was much encouraged by my vicar who was a not very academic type, but a decent fellow, he’d been a printer. Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 16 C1155/03/01 F16660B
And so who was the first person that told you about sex?
Bishop Hine. He was my mentor. He had gone to Central Africa as a doctor and later became a bishop, first of Zanzibar, then Likoma, then of Northern Rhodesia.
And how did you meet him?
He confirmed me.
And so how long…
He invited me to go and stay with him at times, in Lincoln, in the Sub-Deanery. He wasn’t the Sub-Dean, but he lived in the Sub-Deanery. [laughs]
And so how long were you working in this parish for?
How long was I…?
How long were you in that parish for?
Which parish?
The one in Lincoln.
The one in Lincoln? Three years. And then I went to Putney.
And were you still a curate at this point?
Yes. But I was very friendly with Stefan Hopkinson, who died the other day, and he was in charge of St Mary’s, Putney and he asked me to go and join him as fellow curate, which I did. Then he was appointed to his first vicarage, Barrow-in-Furness. He wanted me to go with him as his curate. Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 17 C1155/03/01 F16660B
And did you?
‘As your curate eh,’ I said, ‘Well don’t think you can come the heavy boss with me, because you can’t.’ ‘We’ll work together’ I said, and we did.
And what was he like?
He was a very interesting character. He died a few months ago.
And what was it like working closely with him?
Okay, we thought alike.
And what was the parish like in Barrow-on-Furness?
…Well it was new parish on Barrow Island and we made a go of it. Course, we’re very impressed, the people were very impressed that we – this was during the war – that we… went on night watch on the roof of the church and so on… and when the other clergy went away at the middle of the week to safe places in the country, we stayed behind.
And how was that parish affected by the Second World War?
How what?
How was that parish affected during the Second World War?
…Well the trawlers which escaped from Holland from [inaudible] were turned into minesweepers and was based on Barrow-in-Furness and I became their chaplain, because I haven’t mentioned it before, but I speak fluent Dutch.
Where did you learn Dutch?
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 18 C1155/03/01 F16660B
In Holland.
How did you come to be in Holland?
What?
How did you come to be in Holland?
Invited to stay with a pupil of mine. …I was teaching English to foreigners in order to supplement my income and one of them was very keen on me going and staying with him in Haventje [ph]… and I had to talk English to him because he was a teacher of English, and French to his wife because she was French, so I picked up my Dutch from the call girls and other dubious characters.
Where did you meet the call girls?
By buying cigarettes from them in the kiosks.
And how did you learn French?
How did I what?
Learn French?
Learn French? Well, I’m an educated Englishman, I speak French.
But did you learn it in England or in France?
I mean it was taken for granted that at school one would learn French, but not Dutch. I learnt that separately. I also learnt a bit of Russian.
When were you in Holland?
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 19 C1155/03/01 F16660B
…You’ve a genius for asking impossible questions.
Well, it’s okay if you don’t remember.
Oh, oh, oh.
D’you want to pause for a little bit?
What?
D’you want to pause the tape for a little bit?
Do I want what?
D’you want to pause for a little bit?
No. I just can’t remember…
So where did you go after Barrow-in-Furness?
Putney. …Because Stefan Hopkinson was made Curate of Putney and so I went to be his fellow curate there and… Then he was made Vicar of Battersea and he had the gift of all the Battersea churches except his own. He kept offering them to me and eventually I accepted one.
And when did you start working on the Eagle?
About 1950.
And can you just say for the tape what that was?
What?
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 20 C1155/03/01 F16660B
Can you just explain what the Eagle was?
My friend Marcus Morris was a genius clergyman who founded Eagle in order that a strip cartoon magazine could be suitable for Christian young people and…
[End of F16660 Side B]
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 21 C1155/03/02 F16661A
[F16661 Side A]
Because… he discovered that I’m a visualiser. There aren’t very many of us. A visualiser is an non-drawing artist; you can describe the drawing, but you can’t draw it yourself. And so all the best stories in Eagle and Girl were scripted by me and drawn by an artist.
What kind of stories were they?
Well, Eagle for boys, Girl for girls. Exciting stories.
But were they adventure stories?
What?
Were they adventure stories – what kind of subject?
Adventures, yeah. Have you ever seen a copy?
I haven’t seen a copy.
Dear oh dear. I haven’t got one around. Hey, can you switch me off?
Yes.
[break in recording]
My friend Marcus Morris, a clergyman’s son who was like me, not entirely content with just that, he had this idea of a strip cartoon magazine for children… using strip cartoon as a serious way of telling a story vividly… and he did a lot of work on it and came up with a sort of prototype and Hulton Press eventually were interested in it and took it on. And at this stage I went on helping him and also with Girl, that was a similar paper for girls. Eventually there were four papers; there was Swift and Robin – Robin for those who were just learning to read and Swift for the intermediate people who are not quite yet ready for Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 22 C1155/03/02 F16661A
Eagle or Girl. It was a tremendous success story. …At one time Eagle was selling a million copies I think.
And where was it sold?
Sorry?
Where was it sold?
The newsagent. But of course this was a long time ago. It started in 1950 I think. Well where are we now? Two thousand and something.
And four.
It’s all ancient history really.
How long did it run for?
…I think about fifteen years.
And were you involved for all of that time?
Mm?
Were you involved with it for all of that time?
Yes. …And then he… he made use of his talents in other directions. He became Managing Editor of the National Magazine Co and he had more success with what he did after Eagle than before. …We always remained friends, but he became really quite a power in the land of children’s magazines.
So why did the Eagle stop publication?
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 23 C1155/03/02 F16661A
Mm?
Why did the Eagle stop publication?
…I don’t think I know why. I think it just had its day. …You see when you’re talking to an old, old, old antique fellow like me, it’s bound to be a lot of it about things that no longer are.
Yes. Well let’s talk about something which is still in existence, which is The Samaritans, which I believe you founded in 1953.
Yeah.
And can you just explain how you founded that organisation?
[coughs] [pause] When I was Rector of St Stephen Walbrook in the City of London… I invited people with problems to ring us up and they did. Also they came to see us, in person.
And why d’you think there was a need for an organisation like the Samaritans?
Sorry?
Why had you thought that there was a need for an organisation like the Samaritans?
Why did what?
Why did you feel there was a need for an organisation like the Samaritans?
[pause] My chief motivation was, I regarded suicide as a waste of human opportunity, and so it was a way of combating suicide, to get in touch with suicidal people and convince them that they had something to offer, something better, and it sort of caught on. But there’ve been books about it. Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 24 C1155/03/02 F16661A
I know there have, but it would be I think valuable just to get some of your thoughts…
Sorry?
I think it would be valuable just to get some of your thoughts and memories on tape.
[pause] Don’t take it amiss, but I’m getting a bit bored.
Okay, shall we just turn it off?
[End of F16661 Side A]
[F16661 Side B – no recording]
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 25 C1155/03/03 F16662A
[F16663 Side A]
So, this is Niamh Dillon interviewing Chad Varah on the fifth of January 2005. This is our second recording and we’re going to talk about how you started The Samaritans.
You’ll have to speak up a bit.
Sorry. So this is our second recording and we’re going to talk about how you founded The Samaritans.
Okay, shall I go ahead?
Yes, if you could tell me how you came to found The Samaritans.
…Well I became aware that suicide was a very big problem in this country and indeed in all countries, but nobody seemed to be doing anything about it. And so I decided that the first thing to do was to identify who were the people at risk and so I thought, how do you do that? Well, you invite everybody who is suicidal to get in touch and if they do, you’ll know who are your constituents. And so I had a church in the City and I decided to offer the telephone number to the suicidal and other despairing people and a very strange thing happened. I picked up the telephone and said, ‘Could I have the number changed?’ So the operator said, ‘What number are you speaking from?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, I’ll have a look. Oh,’ I said, ‘It’s Mansion House nine thousand.’ ‘And what number did you want?’ So I said, ‘Well, that sounds a pretty good one to me, I think I’ll stick with it’. [laughs] …The newspapers were very good at popularising the idea that this mad clergyman in the City was going to offer to help suicidal people who rung him up or came to see him and… the press is very powerful, especially when they realise that somebody is seriously attempting something for the country’s good and he’s not just seeking publicity for the sake of it. And so… they put all kinds of optimistic headlines such as, ‘City Rector will prevent suicide’. [laughs] …Well… I couldn’t answer all the calls, but I enlisted a few friends to help me and they were the first Samaritans. And I began promoting what I later discovered is called a ‘listening therapy’. People who wanted to join my organisation who came with magazines about psychiatry up their jumper, I said, ‘That’s not going to be any Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 26 C1155/03/03 F16662A good to you with me. All you have to do is to listen. And don’t imagine you’re amateur psychiatrists’. Most people who are in a desperate state have never had anyone to give them their complete attention. There’s no more precious gift you can give to a fellow human being than your undivided attention, and that of course means non-judgemental. It also, strangely enough, means not giving advice. Why is it bad to give advice? Because you’re wanting the person to advise himself or herself, who knows the whole story or the whole background and not have you jumping to conclusions on the basis of a very short acquaintance. So I suppose the term ‘listening therapy’ would best describe what I and my assistants were doing. [pause] [coughs] People could, came to see me with or without an appointment and also could telephone or write me a letter, so I was kept pretty busy, I and my secretary, who was called Vivien Prosser [ph]. …And the answer to the question, do you… d’you know what is right for everybody who calls, are you an expert in everything? I said, ‘No, if you’re doing a listening therapy, you’re an expert in whatever the person is coming to see you about or ringing you up about’. Most people don’t want advice, they want to be told that what they have decided to do is okay. Now we’re going to have to switch off for a break.
[break in recording]
…to call upon if you decide to start and do something crazy. And the advantage of having a church in the City of London is that nobody lives in your parish, so the only people who come to the church are ones that come from here, there and everywhere because they like it. And I was lucky to have the most beautiful church in the world, St Stephen Walbrook, there it is. As you see it’s baroque. And you can see that the Rector of it was a Master of Arts at Oxford. How can you tell that?
I can’t.
The surplice and hood hanging on the communion rail.
Ah.
That’s MA Oxford. Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 27 C1155/03/03 F16662A
It does look beautiful.
Yes, I love it. I think I was Rector there for fifty years, but I may be mistaken. …My successor still carries on with a Sung Eucharist every Thursday with a professional choir singing wonderful settings by Byrd, Gibbons, Lassus, Monteverdi, Palestrina.
And what was the attitude of the church towards you setting up The Samaritans?
…Very pleased that somebody was doing something that they could get a pat on the back for, instead of concentrating on getting people to come to services. Not that they objected to people trying to fill their churches, but they did want somebody to be doing something of social value and also… I don’t know if you’ve got the impression that I’m a tough old guy, an irascible old gent.
No.
…People didn’t easily take me on if I wanted to do something. I didn’t welcome opposition.
And was there any opposition to founding The Samaritans?
…You see the churches in the one square mile of the City, which are far too numerous for the population, are supposed to do specialist work, not just ordinary parishes. And so my specialist work was preventing suicide, administering to the suicidal and nobody could really disapprove of that.
Could you just say what the legal attitude to suicide was at that time?
…Well at the time I started, suicide was a crime. Not just a misdemeanour, but a felony. It seems a bit odd you could go to prison for it. [laughs] But not if you succeeded. So if you attempted suicide, you could in theory go to prison, but in fact magistrates didn’t send Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 28 C1155/03/03 F16662A people to prison, they looked for an alternative and of course I supplied them with one. [laughs] And so we were well in order with the authorities in the City.
And before you founded The Samaritans, was there any organisation that offered help to those who were suicidal?
No. [pause] No, it was regarded as a rather eccentric thing to do, but then I’ve never minded being eccentric. The good thing about it was, that the huge number of churches in the square mile of the City with no parishioners or hardly any, were having difficulty in justifying their existence… and so my setting up The Samaritans to prevent suicide, I was providing a justification for one at least of the City churches. Though of course it’s now famous for the wonderful music I established there. From the very beginning I had a Thursday lunchtime Sung Eucharist with a professional quartet and a repertoire of fifty different, wonderful Masses.
And who came to your church?
No parishioners because the only person living in the parish was the Lord Mayor and he was too busy, but the combination of superb singing, wonderful music and my quite challenging sermons meant that we always had a congregation.
And you mentioned that you’d set up The Samaritans with some friends – can you just tell me a little bit about the friends you set up The Samaritans with?
About the…?
About the people that you set up The Samaritans with?
…It’s a long time ago. Erm… There wasn’t much distinction really, between… the congregation who came for the services and The Samaritans, they tended to overlap. Some people liked to be practical in their Christianity and do something helpful and this allowed them to do that. But of course you’d get a better account of it from somebody other than me. Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 29 C1155/03/03 F16662A
Well, it’s wonderful to have you who founded the organisation talking about it.
You see, The Samaritans was not just one organisation in one church. By the end there were I think two hundred branches, roughly two hundred, all over the British Isles and it also spread to other countries under the title Befrienders International. I had [inaudible] with the clergy of European countries… who decided that… oh dear…
Would you like to take a pause? Do you want to take a pause?
No. You see, the story of The Samaritans started… fairly near the beginning of my ministry and… spread all over the country. I think we had about two hundred branches… Of course whenever they wanted to start another one, they asked me to go and give a talk and so I seemed to be in charge of all of them, but in fact nobody can be when they’re so widespread and numerous. However, the important thing is, it was not religious. The parable of the Good Samaritan shows a Samaritan being one who will help a neighbour, a fellow human being… and the people who wanted to make it religious, I had no use for. I seem to remember saying at one time, being a Samaritan is in itself a religion, but a practical one. [laughs]
And were there certain qualities that you looked for in a Samaritan?
Well, they were handpicked… It may sound a bit funny saying it in cold blood like this, but the thing I was looking for was humility. People who didn’t think they were any better then anybody else and that it was a great privilege to be asked to help somebody and so they shouldn’t get bigheaded about it.
[End of F16662 Side A] Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 30 C1155/03/03 F16662B
[F16662 Side B]
Countries tended to be independent and… they didn’t see why they should be bossed by me. Well nor did I, I was too busy. But although some countries emphasised religion more, such as Germany and such as Sweden, the more practical side was always dominant. Perhaps you could ask me a few questions.
Sure. So what was the relationship between The Samaritans and Befrienders International?
When The Samaritans spread to other countries [coughs], it became international and because the other countries didn’t know what Samaritans were - they thought it was something in the Bible, and of course it is in the Bible but not as a religious personage – so…
So did the other European organisations, did they set up after The Samaritans set up in the UK?
Not exactly, no. They established an organisation called IFOTES – I-F-O-T-S – International Federation of Telephone Emergency Services.
And which were the countries that you felt were closest to The Samaritans?
[pause] Western Europe… on the whole. We had a wonderful collection of people with unpronounceable foreign names, coming and learning how to do it. And then of course we spread to the – because of Britain being an Empire – we spread to countries that had been in the Empire like Sri Lanka and Australia and New Zealand.
So were you surprised by the success, the international success of The Samaritans?
No. No, if you devise something life saving and practical and useful and accessible to everybody, you’re not surprised if it spreads.
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 31 C1155/03/03 F16662B
And just going back to the beginnings of The Samaritans in your church in the City, did you find that there were certain types of people that were phoning up who were needing help because they felt suicidal?
Did I find what?
Were there certain types of people who were phoning The Samaritans in the beginning?
What d’you mean by types of people?
Well, people with certain problems, with a certain recurrent problem that were causing people to phone The Samaritans?
Well I had a reputation of being a sex therapist, so we did get a certain number who had sexual problems. At one time, as the movement spread, there began to be people who objected to the free and easy way we spoke about sex and… I coined the name ‘Brenda’ for girls who were specially trained by me to deal without being shocked by sexually demanding, sexually aggressive callers. You see I’m a practical person and… if we found that there was a demand for sex instruction… instead of saying ‘naughty, naughty, that’s not what we started for’, we picked out the girls who could do it best and let them get on with it.
And how did you train them?
I selected them myself and listened to them for their first few calls and then left them to get on with it. You’d be surprised at how quickly well brought up girls learn how to deal effectively with the most lecherous clients. I have a great admiration for women. [laughs]
Why women? Why women rather than men?
Men are competitive aren’t they, and also men are the ones who make those demands on sexual information. The ones who tame it and calm it down and make it really informative are women. Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 32 C1155/03/03 F16662B
So were there more Samaritans that were women than were men?
Are what?
Were there more Samaritans who were women?
Er…
D’you want to pause?
Yeah.
[break in recording]
So, I think we just missed it, I asked were there more Samaritan volunteers who were women and you said…
On the whole, in those days, women were freer than men. Men were busy making their careers and establishing themselves… Of course we got, within the organisation as a group, we got some people who disapproved of me and my ways.
Why did they disapprove?
…I think they were envious. They didn’t like young women being given responsibility.
And what did they disapprove of?
…People being valued for what they had to contribute instead of establishing a sort of hierarchy.
Why d’you think these people became Samaritans?
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 33 C1155/03/03 F16662B
…Oh boy. Why did… I suppose their reasons were as various as themselves. Some of them expanded the work. There are still some who visit prisons and… [inaudible] run Nightlines were, universities mostly have a nightline when everything’s shut and all offices are closed, if you really need desperately some help, you can get it by ringing Nightline, which is an offshoot of The Samaritans.
So how did you respond to these people who disapproved?
By sacking them.
Oh.
At one time they got more power than I, but that period is over. The longer I live, the more I’m our beloved founder and the less that bloody nuisance, Chad was always interfering. [laughs]
So how much contact d’you have with the organisation now?
None at all. Various organisations that have sprung from ours still send me their annual reports from all over the world and I never know… [pause – paper rustling] Yeah, there’s one. [pause] If I get this kind of envelope I know it’s from one of our overseas organisations. [laughs]
Thank you. Oh this one’s from Sri Lanka.
Yes.
And when did you cease being involved with The Samaritans?
Pardon?
When did you stop being involved with The Samaritans?
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 34 C1155/03/03 F16662B
When I retired. When I came to live here and didn’t have a church any more… There’s one from Sri Lanka, you could read it.
Thank you. [pause] They say it’s the first one.
Yeah, they haven’t, most of the others are already, had one a long time ago, but some have only just started to have a newsletter.
Ah. [pause] So, going back to starting The Samaritans – how many people were working with you at the very beginning?
…About fifty. But of course it’s increased geometrically, because the more centres you got, the more members.
And were you operating from the church?
I made it clear from the very beginning that we are not a religious organisation, we are a charitable humane organisation and so St Stephen Walbrook was a base for one branch, simply because it was where I made my living. I lived on being Rector of St Stephen Walbrook.
And can you just describe what your first office looked like?
Well it’s still there. You can go and have a look.
But just for the tape, if you could just describe what it looked like.
…Well the church is a most beautiful church and the verger, John Salter, is still in charge. I think they’ve got a new Rector now, I just can’t remember who it might be… and the same services that I used to have still continue.
And the actual office that The Samaritans started from, how big was that?
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 35 C1155/03/03 F16662B
How what?
How big was the office that The Samaritans started from?
How what?
How big was it?
Oh, about the size of this room.
And so how many people did you have working in it?
Oh well, this was my office about this size, but then there was the crypt, which was quite extensive, lots of little rooms.
And when you started, how many hours a day was The Samaritans able to provide a service?
Well, at the beginning only when I was available and then a bit later we were twenty-four hours a day and we had people on duty sleeping at night.
And in the beginning, how many people did you have coming in to see you?
Are you talking about seeking help, or…?
Yes, to seek help.
Well when we got organised, the people who came would see whoever was there and only passed them through to me if they thought they were out of their depth, so I got the most difficult ones.
And therefore what kind of people would come and see you?
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 36 C1155/03/03 F16662B
…Human beings. [laughs] [pause]
What kind of problems were considered too difficult for The Samaritans?
…We were not a problem solving agency.
But you said the most difficult people were sent through to see you.
The problem was that people hadn’t been listened to and they wanted to be heard, and they came and they were heard and they felt better. Would you like to switch off for a minute?
Yes, sure.
[End of F16662 Side B] Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 37 C1155/03/04 F16663A
[F16663 Side A]
…forget, The Samaritans got such favourable publicity and everybody spoke well of the work that we were doing, so when a psychiatrist was invited to become consultant for a branch, he didn’t refuse, he jumped at it. [laughs]
And what was the role of the psychiatrist?
To see people with psychiatric problems. You see people with psychiatric problems… don’t always want to talk to a psychiatrist, but a Samaritan psychiatrist, that’s another thing. [laughs] Oh yes.
And d’you think there was a difference between psychiatrists that worked directly with The Samaritans and psychiatrists that worked independently?
…Well all psychiatrists who are practising work in some hospital or other.
And did you have other professionals that worked with you?
…Such as?
Nurses or other medical staff?
No. I think you’re running out of questions aren’t you?
No, I just don’t want to ask you too much. I’d like to know about the training that the individual Samaritans received.
Could you put the light on?
Yes, sure.
It’s getting a bit dim isn’t it? Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 38 C1155/03/04 F16663A
Yes. This one okay?
I prefer this one.
Okay, let me put the other one on.
That’s better.
Is that better?
What were you going to ask?
I was going to ask about the training that the Samaritans received, what kind of training the Samaritans received.
Yeah. When people came to interview me in the old days, they would ask about training and I would always say, we do not turn out trained people, we turn out people that will listen and pay attention and behave appropriately.
But was there any training given? Was there training given to Samaritans?
Every time we had a new intake of volunteers, they would attend a series of classes. One on general befriending, one on psychiatric problems, one on marital problems and one on other sexual problems. [pause] Did you read any of the books I wrote about The Samaritans?
Yes, I’ve read this one.
That what?
I read this one.
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 39 C1155/03/04 F16663A
Oh, haven’t seen that. Very good. Well this can tell you more than I can.
I know, but it’s nice to have it in your own words, I mean there are lots of books and articles written about The Samaritans, but it’s we think important to have something where you’re talking and we can record your own thoughts on it.
[pause] Unfortunately, this high society branch [?] by Vanda Scott, she became a defector.
Oh, what d’you mean by defector?
Working against me.
In what way?
[pause] ‘What are the lessons and limits of Brenda?’, page two seven one. [pause] I used to love picking out famous quotations to fill the bottom of a page.
What does it have on that page?
‘But are they all horrid, are you sure they’re all horrid?’ Catherine Mans…
Mansfield?
In Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. Of course they aren’t all horrid. The ones who thought of themselves as being horrid, we give them some self-esteem.
You said that the Brendas were mainly to do with people that rang up for sexual reasons – were there any other group of people that were trained to deal with other specific problems?
Relationships. You see here, you can see how we’ve spread throughout the world. One is the British Isles, then two Hong Kong, three India, four Zimbabwe, five Pakistan, six New Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 40 C1155/03/04 F16663A
Zealand, seven Australia, eight Poland, nine Brazil, eleven Malaysia. …I see you’ve put a marker in on… oh, central London branch.
So what impact did The Samaritans have on the rate of suicide in the UK? Thank you.
Erm… I can’t remember the figures that I used to know off by heart, but… the figures went down and down.
So how did it feel to have such a positive impact?
What?
How did it feel to have such a positive impact?
I don’t know, how would you expect it to feel?
Well, I would imagine it felt very satisfying and rewarding, but how did you feel?
Well, I was too busy to pat myself on the back.
And when did the organisation start to spread from London to other parts of the UK?
…Well, it’s all in the book – I gave a list of the branches in England. I think the first twenty-five were all in the first twelve months.
And was there anyone that you worked particularly closely with in the beginning?
Oh don’t forget they were all handpicked, so on principle they were all just equally good, but some were particularly valuable for certain specialities.
And how does it feel looking back over the organisation that you founded – d’you feel that the principles are the ones that you founded it with?
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 41 C1155/03/04 F16663A
…Well I take the view that if I got it right, I hope they stick to it, but if I didn’t get it right, they would put it right.
Is there anything else that you’d like to add, for the record?
I don’t think so.
Well thank you very much for your time.
Not at all, you’re very welcome, but I think you now realise that you find yourself asking impossible questions.
Why impossible?
[break in recording]
You were just going to talk about how The Samaritans was financed.
I said to Sir Keith Joseph that according to my information, we save the National Health Service many thousands a year by reducing the number of people that need them or need them severely and… he said, ‘Oh, well congratulations, that’s very good to hear’. So I said, ‘Perhaps you’d like to talk to our treasurer about how much help we’ve been’.
And then, how much did the Government give after that?
I don’t know, it’s not my department.
And before that, how was The Samaritans financed?
I don’t know. At the beginning out of my private purse, but a bit later on… out of church funds. But gradually it became self-supporting.
Chad Varah DRAFT 1 Page 42 C1155/03/04 F16663A
Great, thank you very much.
[End of F16663 Side A]
[F16663 Side B – No Recording]
[End of Recording]