Samaritans was founded in 1953 by the Rev. Chad Varah, a Church of England vicar in the Diocese of London. His inspiration came from an experience he had had some years earlier as a young curate in the Diocese of Lincoln. He had taken a funeral for a fourteen-year old girl who had died by suicide because she believed she had contracted an STI, when in reality she was menstruating.[6] Varah placed an advertisement in a newspaper encouraging people to volunteer at his church, listening to people contemplating suicide. The movement grew rapidly: within ten years there were 40 branches and now there are 201 branches across Great Britain and Ireland, deliberately organised without regard to national boundaries on the basis that a service which is not political or religious should not recognise political or sectarian divisions. Samaritans offers support through over 21,200 trained volunteers (2015) and is entirely dependent on voluntary support. The name was not originally chosen by Chad Varah: it was part of a headline to an article in the Daily Mirror newspaper on 7 December 1953 about Varah's work. In 1972, BBC1 ran an 11-episode television series called The Befrienders, featuring fictional stories about people in desperate situations who reach out to the Samaritans. Although it was cancelled after one season, the series helped to raise public awareness about their work, leading to a significant increase in inbound calls, as well as a surge in the number of volunteers in the UK.
