In the darkness, a light. It shines on the corner of a modest row of houses in a nondescript street. The night may feel oppressive and empty, but still the light shines. And it illuminates a word that says there is still hope. That word is: Samaritans.
That light was fixed to a building where I spent many extraordinary hours. I had the privilege of volunteering for the charity for three years; the experience changed my life. And there are many other such lights, in cities and towns and villages across the country: you may sometimes glimpse them from a window of a train, and they remind you there is desperate suffering everywhere, but also that, everywhere, there is someone to help.
Samaritans has more than 200 branches. But, according to its managers, that is too many. They said last week that they want to close 100 of them. Volunteers will be moved to “regional hubs”, and some volunteers will take calls at home. This news has alarmed many of those who give up their free time for the charity, and I share their fears. Both parts of the plan carry wider significance, too: the first as an example of a trend towards making charities more like corporations, the second in the questions it raises about working from home.
One of the first things that struck me about Samaritans was its amateurism. I mean that in the best possible way. Its standards are professional and its training is rigorous, but it runs on love. We operated not from a shiny call centre, but from a converted mid-20th-century semi, a homely place. Although the branch had dozens of volunteers, there would be only two or three of us on duty at any given time.
Chad Varah, who founded Samaritans in 1953.
It was intimate, humble and human. You would gradually get to know the other volunteers, and the relationships forged would be crucial in getting you through tough calls. A lot was done with pen and paper. In contrast to a digital world that can seem so alienating, it all felt warmly analogue.
This culture is what makes Samaritans so distinctive. There are no scripts or prompts – just you, your ears and your humanity. Samaritans are not automatons. Yes, you could theoretically operate in the same way from a “regional hub”, but the feel of the thing would surely be different: less grounded, less rooted, less like somewhere a caller might call from.
The “localness”, too, is important. You might receive a call from anywhere in the country, but your branch is a symbol to its community. What the charity’s managers call “bricks and mortar” are real buildings in real places. And a branch is embedded in its place: its volunteers may help out at nearby schools, or spread the message of Samaritans at local fetes.
Of course, running a charity is difficult, and the demands on Samaritans are intense. What was once regarded as the last resort for those on the brink of suicide is now, for too many, the only way to get through to a human who will listen. The charity is having to fill huge gaps left by underfunded public services, a problem compounded recently by economic problems and the crisis in the cost of living. If you’re running Samaritans, and you need to balance resources with demand, you may well look at your budget and see the sense in shutting half your branches. But efficiency can bring its own costs, and so much of what makes Samaritans special will never show up on any spreadsheet.
And there are surely risks too in taking calls “remotely”. Remotely – the word suggests a kind of isolation. But rarely in my life have I wanted more to be close to someone else than when taking a Samaritans call. If a mother is telling you that she wants to end her life and has the means to do so there and then, you may well want someone with you. That person may just sit with you silently, or may write the occasional note of support. Afterwards, that person may talk with you over a cup of tea. The idea that a volunteer may have to take such a call alone, “remotely”, is troubling indeed.
And those are far from the only difficult calls you may take. Far more frequent are calls from men seeking sexual gratification. These can feel invasive enough as it is, and surely would feel even more so in the privacy of your own home. Indeed, perhaps this whole exercise shows us where we might draw a line between work that can be done at home and work that must be done elsewhere. We have tended to see the issue in terms of what is physically possible, rather than what is emotionally wise: the charity may be doing us an indirect favour by making us consider the importance of both.
As a charity, Samaritans has to deal with many of the symptoms of deepening societal malaise. But it must beware the hazards of succumbing to those same dread forces. Humanity and connection are what callers crave, and what Samaritans provides. Yet it is in danger of becoming more like the wider world, and less like itself. Up and down the country, those lights still shine. Let’s keep them on.
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