Obituary: The Reverend Chad Varah (Founder of the Samaritans)

BBC ^ | Thursday, 8 November 2007 | n/a

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The Reverend Chad Varah founded Samaritans with one telephone line and saw it grow into a world-wide organisation helping thousands of people to avoid the ultimate act of desperation.

He was never a conventional clergyman. His chief concern from the start was to help individuals rather than spreading the gospel.

Born in Barton-on-Humber, where his father was the vicar at St Chad's, the local Anglican church, Chad Varah was educated at Oxford before, he said, being "press-ganged" into the life of a priest.

Promise

His first task as an assistant curate in Lincoln in 1935 determined the path he would follow.

Standing in at the funeral of a 14-year-old girl, he asked the undertaker why the girl was being buried in unconsecrated ground, and was told she had killed herself because she had mistaken menstruation for a serious disease.

A smile of success: Chad Varah Chad Varah wanted volunteers with humility Dr Varah recalled his reaction: "I stood at the end of the grave and I said, little girl, I never knew you, but I promise you that you have changed my life and I shall teach children about sex."

Dr Varah kept his promise, although the explicit nature of his advice to children and young couples scandalised many people in the Church.

The need for advice on sexual taboos was reinforced by the response to an article he wrote in Picture Post on the joys of sex, with 250 people writing the next day, asking for help.

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But the idea of a help line became a reality when he became rector of St Stephen Walbrook, a church in the City of London whose only parishioner was the Lord Mayor.

Samaritans grew rapidly, complemented by a dramatic fall in the suicide rate, and its many branches in Britain and around the world now handle millions of calls every year.

Chad Varah always insisted that it should not be a religious organisation.