Samaritan couple have helped 10,000 people over 100 years
CHRISTMAS is a time for giving and good tidings but for thousands of people it can be a time of loneliness and despair and many of them will turn to Samaritans for help in their darkest days and nights.
A married couple who volunteer for the Stratford branch of Samaritans will this month achieve 100 years of volunteering between them and their selfless help to save lives will be recognised at Stratford Samaritans’ Annual General Meeting held today, 8th December.
It was December 1972 when Alison Hoddell started with Samaritans and persuaded her husband, Stephen, to join her aa little while later in what would become a remarkable achievement as they’ve each served the suicide prevention charity for the last 50 years.
The couple from Claverdon, estimate they’ve completed 2,500 shifts during that time, and generally speak to three to four people during each of their four-hour shifts which means they reckon they’ve spoken with 10,000 people in total during their time at Samaritans.
“It’s still too many people though and predominantly males,” Stephen said. “My wife also volunteers for the Samaritans support of the country’s prison population where the suicide rate is depressingly higher in prisons. The Samaritans is well-known and we can have conversations which can be very short or much longer with an assortment of people some of whom have already decided how they are going to commit suicide and that’s precisely the reason why they are most at risk and need our help.”
Samaritans vision is that fewer people die by suicide. Every seven seconds Samaritan volunteers across the UK respond to a call for help. According to the charity, last year over 5,000 suicides were registered in England, 74 per cent of them men and every 90 minutes in the UK, someone dies by suicide. The prison suicide rate in the UK currently stands at about ten per month.
Stephen and Alison both still complete regular shifts every week as part of a team of around 100 volunteers who this year have answered an average of over 1,500 calls a month supporting the public through the 24-hour helpline and email service.
When they started at Samaritans in Bristol they were both graduate students who went on to become university lecturers; Stephen in engineering and Alison in economics. They also raised a young family of two children and had to juggle their volunteering with family life.
“I would do a morning shift on a Saturday and Alison would then bring the children to Samaritans and I’d take them home with me while she did the afternoon shift,” Stephen said.
From Bristol, the couple have taken on various roles regionally in the South-West and nationally where Stephen was chair of the Samaritans for the UK and Ireland from 2011 to 2014 and in 2015 He was recognised for his service to the Samaritans and awarded the CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for Services to Civil Society.
In their spare time, Stepehen is a member of Stratford-upon-Avon Symphony Orchestra – where he plays double bass – Stephen is passionate about music which he finds “enormously relaxing” meanwhile Alison rings bells at Claverdon Church but she also likes to delve into the past and take time to explore family history and has discovered she’s descended from Thomas Hammersley who pawned the crown jewels for the Prince Regent who later became King George IV.
Christmas will see Alison and Stephen volunteering again for the Samaritans. They often do the Christmas night shift but for any volunteer, the Samaritans are busy and there to help and listen 24/7 365 days a year.
“It will be very lonely time for people especially if they haven’t spoken to anyone for days and when they call us we are not problem focussed we can instead listen and support them. There is always demand for more volunteers at Samaritans and the demand for our service doesn’t seem to fall at all so we really do need volunteers. I’ve met volunteers all over the country and the Samaritans is a great thing to be part of. You get much more out of it than you put in and it keeps you in touch with the realities of people’s lives.”
Stratford Samaritans are always looking for new volunteers to help support their callers. They have regular open evenings to tell people about the volunteer roles available. More information can be found at: https://www.samaritans.org/branches/stratford-upon-avon/
Samaritans is a charity and it’s public donations and around 22,000 volunteers that mean they are always there for anyone struggling to cope. To find out how to support or volunteer visit www.samaritans.org
Every day, Samaritans volunteers respond to around 10,000 calls for help. Call are free on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org,
