Enfield, Haringey and Barnet Samaritans

History of Enfield, Haringey and Barnet Samaritans
40 Queens Road, Bounds Green, London N11 2QU. Tel: 020 8889 6888

  Rev. Chad Varah, Founder of Samaritans
The Samaritans were originally founded in London in November 1953 by the Rev. Chad Varah.  There are now 202 branches of Samaritans across the UK.

The Samaritans Branch in Enfield, Haringey and Barnet, was founded in 1975 and is an independent charity. 

Sylvia (aged 80) and Harry (aged 91) Knight were founder members of the branch; they still live locally and attended our recent AGM.  They were both volunteers at Centrepoint, when it was first opened and they saw an advert calling for volunteers to open a new branch of Samaritans in the North London area. 

They, together with a group of others, formed a steering committee.  They all received training, some from the great Chad Varah himself. They attended conferences and visited other branches to see how they worked.  The current premises in multi-cultural Bounds Green were identified as ideal for a branch and once they had enough people, the branch was opened in 1975 with 80 active volunteers.

One of those founder members was our very own Pat Crew, who is still a listening volunteer today and also actively supports the branch by running the Information Days, selection and training programmes