Commit

Nothing written about the first meeting - following the ballet fiasco - so, er, sorry about that. Very much a 'meet'n'greet' - with a beady eye from the 'proper Sams' watching, listening and hahaha SELECTING.

Or were they?

The thing is, not a lot of people apply to become Samaritans. No wonder. It's not like applying to work in a charity shop, where you can ring up and say "Sorry... can't make it tomorrow... I'l try and do next Tuesday". And that situation's okay because, come on, you're making the effort. And that's nice.

The Sams thing - you have to commit to dates and times. Emergency board meeting for your multinational company? No way, pal, that's no excuse: you might have saved a suicidal person instead of going to decide your new human resources strategy in America.

More to follow. But look: these Sams guys are committed.

But the training we did in the most recent meeting was very clever and very interesting. I'll tell you more ASAP but it's late.

Ballet School Horror

The first training meeting. A cold dark winter night. I've arrived with another bloke and neither of us has much idea where the venue actually is. Some church hall? Luckily we spot a line of people streaming into a brightly lit room, so we follow. Excellent!

Unluckily this place turns out to be an adolescent girls' ballet studio. Deeply unexcellent.

These people are in tutus. Pink and frilly. We make our garbled excuses. We realise that neither of us will ever again get jobs in education or social services. The video cameras will see to that. "Middle aged men seen prowling tots' ballet school..."

Yikes. Stumble through more rooms. So.. many... rooms...

...then a kindly man sends us to the Right Place. Ah. We are there.

Advice to psychopaths

Sorry for lack of posts. The news is: I'm in - subject to a police check.

In the UK, everyone involved with working with kids or 'the vulnerable' - now there's a loose term; must apply to everyone other than Masters of the Universe (and I'm not sure about them either) - has to be 'investigated' before they start work. The Criminal Records Bureau - CRB - is in charge of this. And what a daft organisation it is.

A few months back, I had to fill out a CRB form before I could start helping little kids in my son's school learn about road safety. It's a reasonably long document; you'd expect it to cover areas like "Are you a danger to the public?", "Do you have a history of mental illness?" and "Have you ever shouted at vulnerable people?". Not a bit of it. They ask you to confirm your address. They ask you for the job title you're going for. Er, that's it.

They don't even ask you for a referee - something I'd have thought was pretty compulsory. I mean, if you were employing someone in a fairly sensitive job, you'd want some other human being to vouch for them. The CRB doesn't.

A few weeks later, they send you a certificate that proves you're no danger to the public.

My advice to any deranged psychopaths hoping to get a job with the social services: give a false address - perhaps your local doctor's - send off the form, and await certification as a warm, cuddly person. It's that easy, folks.

Lion's den

As the day progressed, individuals would be beckoned away from the group and disappear, accompanied by a man wearing a black leather hood and weilding a baseball bat. Half an hour or so later, they would be hurled back into the meeting room, tearful, dazed and often covered in blood. This was called 'the interview' and before long it was my turn.

My interviewer was a quietly spoken woman. To one side of her was a heavily bearded man sitting at a desk. "Don't worry about Brian; he won't say anything!" she said. Who was this mysterious Brian? The office mascot? A waif who'd crawled in off the street for warmth? The caretaker? "No, he's just here to take notes." The man looked at me and smiled thinly.

The interviewer introduced herself, then "Well, why do you want to join Samaritans?" I burbled something about 'wanting to contribute' - bog-standard, off-the-peg stuff. As I spoke, I realised that I really should have prepared for this a bit better. What if she started asking really tough questions? A moment later, she did start asking really tough questions, and continued to do so for quite some time. In the brief moments of silence, I could hear Brian sratching away with his pen. What on earth was he writing? And why was there so much of it?

What were my good qualities? Bad ones? How would I react if...? What would I do if...? Had I ever called the Sams myself? (To say yes might mark me down as unhinged; to say no might imply a lack of emotional depth and sparse life experience). At one point, I jabbered on about a little Indian kid we sponsor through Plan International ("Everyone should do this!" I ranted) and thought, am I telling her just so she'll think I'm a good person? If so, that makes me manipulative and bad! But what if she sees through me? O God! I've blown it! More scratching from Brian, then "Thanks very much for your time" and I was led back to the other quiverers, with hardly a spot of my blood spilt. Physically, I'd been more than a match for this Samaritan Titan; but had my wild mutterings, whoops and shrill cries got me through?

...and they're off

How do they select Samaritans? Here's your guide.

First, find a fierce woman who looks like your mum but has been cleverly compressed. And morphed. She's your leader for the day.

Second, plonk her in front of about 20 quivering initiates in a small room in a drab British town at the weekend.

Third, surround her with a selection of sweet elderly ladies who have clearly been in the organisation for years. (I checked them out slyly for signs of emotional damage from suicidal-phonecall-overload.... distressingly, they continued to look like sweet old ladies for the rest of the day. But at night, I imagine they howl and bite one another).

And four, let the fierce woman welcome the quiverers rather loudly... and may the action begin...

The quiverers

An interesting bunch. Youngest was a lovely 20ish girl with the sort of doe-eyed face that whispers "I rilly rilly care about things" - and that's before she's opened her mouth. Oldest... er.... possibly me, and believe me I'm well preserved and naturally gorgeous (if you prefer the 45-yr-old-Neanderthal look). One guy was clearly a young manager on the way up the corporate ladder; two other men were strikingly intelligent people doing crap warehouse jobs. (Why?) And two single childless women in late 30s Also a wild man who turned up late, unshaven, sweaty, with a crazed gleam in his eye.

Sense and Sensibility

How do you start to make strangers into a cohesive group? Easy. You're put into pairs... have two minutes to interview your partner... they do the same to you... then you have a minute to tell the group about that person.

I was paired with doe-eyes. As soon as she began answering my questions, I realised that she had descended from heaven; an angel here to help mankind.

Me: So what do you do?
Doe: I work for a charity.
Me: Well that's good... you're already giving something back to society, and here you are on your day off wanting to give a bit more.
Doe: (laughs prettily in a Jane Austin heroine way) I just like to help people.

Kind of restores your faith in humanity, doesn't it. Or makes you feel faintly sick.

The death lottery

Next up, a series of group exercises. For example, you're in charge of rescuing a team of eight trapped cavers. The water's rising fast and you can only get one person out every hour. Based on short biographies of the cavers, who do you save - and in what order? Who's first - the one with the most kids? The youngest? The one who's almost developed a cure for cancer? The priest?

My gut feeling was the person with the most kids should be dragged out first- until one of the women on the team pointed out that I was effectively condemning childless women to death. "You put more value on a person's life just because she's popped out a few babies? If she's infertile, does that make her less of a person? She has the same right to life as anyone else!" She was right. What about the cancer-curer? "He'll have made notes and his colleagues can work from those." Okay...

The upshot was that we couldn't - no, didn't - decide on who to save. So we effectively drew lots. The 69 year old had the same chance as the 19 year old. Whether this was the best approach, I leave to the moral philosophers. It's clear, though, that would-be Samaritans don't relish the chance to play God.