While the rest of her family will be enjoying all the fun of the festive break, Susan Williams may well be dozing on the sofa.

That’s because as a Samaritans volunteer she will have been up all night listening to those who are lonely, troubled or suicidal.

“Bank Holidays are difficult for lots of people due to their normal support systems closing down – even their cafes and shops – and they can be lonely and unsupported especially if they feel everyone else is having a good time and for them the passing year was bad and the new one holds out little hope,” says the 70-year-old from Alvescot, near Carterton, west Oxfordshire.

It won’t be the first time she has split her time between her duties for the helpline to those in distress and her family – husband Nigel, son Matthew and daughter-in-law Deepthi who will be visiting from Scotland with their sons Dominic, 15, and Luke, 11 and daughter Abigail, travelling from London back to the family home for the Christmas break.

“They have always supported me in this, especially my husband,” says Susan, who has been a Samaritans volunteer for 20 years.

“They will help me out with cooking and all the jollities and ignore me when I fall asleep. Most families have a sadness somewhere and we are no different so they understand that I feel I want to be there over that time.”

When Susan heard about the Samaritan movement she says: “It sounded such a wonderful idea and I just hoped I would be able to do it. I was lucky, I got through the selection process and the training, which is intense and is still the same today, or even better.

“It really gets us to understand the importance of listening, of acceptance, of not giving advice or making judgements and mostly giving callers a safe place to talk about their feelings.”

Listening to those in distress must be harrowing but Susan says it is very rewarding too.

“I doubt any volunteer feels they are brilliant at it but it is good that callers can trust us to share some very bad times, a privilege really,” she says.

“Doing a charity collection once, a woman said she had never called us but kept our number near in case she ever needed to and that gave her strength.

“ I never underestimate how difficult it can be for someone to pick up the phone for the first time.

“You often don’t know if you have made a difference or helped in any way but the fact that they have shared their sadness, fear, anger, depression makes you hope they are not in such a dark place when they end the call.”

Susan is one of 125 volunteers at Oxford Samaritans, which has its centre in Magdalen Rd, opposite the Pegasus Theatre.

Phones are manned 24-hours and and callers can drop in at any time until 10pm.

Volunteers aim to do three day duties (of about four hours) and one night a month answering telephones (01865 722122 or 08457 909090) and emails.

“We all have a shared bond I suppose,” says Susan. “The volunteers are great so it is good spending time with them as well.”

During Christmas/New Year Susan says there are more calls about family issues and relationships.

“We do have slightly more women callers than men and it is thought this is because women find it easier to talk about emotional problems, depression and loves that have gone wrong. Also work issues that they can’t admit to or health concerns,” she says.

“Men call more now than they did but it would be good to reach more young people of both sexes who are troubled.”

 

Over last year’s Christmas period, every day the Samaritans received around 15,000 calls to their helpline.

It’s a harrowing number, and one that of course does not only exist at Christmas time.

In fact calls often go up after the big days – including New Year’s Eve – are over when people who may have put their troubles to one side for a while face them again with nothing to look forward to.

All year long, on average, the Samaritans – the world’s first, and biggest, helpline for people in distress – receive a call every six seconds. Since the charity launched 60 years ago, it’s answered some 115 million desperate calls for help.

In many ways, things have changed since Reverend Prebendary Chad Varah – inspired by the tragic suicide of a 14 year-old-girl who started menstruating and didn’t understand what was happening – first installed his phone in the parish of St Stephen Walbrook, London, on November 2, 1953, as what he called “a 999 for the suicidal”.

Back then, no one had mobile phones, many people didn’t even have landlines, and often they went to speak to Chad in person.

Now, the Samaritans have services in prisons and hospitals, and in recent years the charity launched an email and texting service, and is hoping to start an instant messaging service in the next few years.

“We are always improving our digital channels to make sure callers feel comfortable,” says Rachel Kirby-Rider, Samaritans’ director of fundraising and communications. “Our calls have always been 100 per cent confidential, but with email and texting, people can feel even more anonymous.”

The heartbreaking reasons why people turn to the Samaritans in the first place – financial worries, confusion over sexual orientation, relationship troubles, being abused, addictions, feeling worthless – haven’t changed much over the years.

And near the top of the list, repeatedly, is loneliness.

As one example, over just one week in August this year, from the 671 calls made by men to 10 Samaritans branches, more than a quarter were about their feelings of loneliness and isolation, something that particularly comes home at Christmas.

Samaritans is available round the clock, every day of the year, providing a safe place for anyone struggling to cope, whoever they are, however they feel, whatever life has done to them. Call 08457 90 90 90, email jo@samaritans.org or visit samaritans.org to find details of your nearest branch.