Kevin Warburton, from Bury St Edmunds, tells how he went from calling Samaritans when he was suicidal to answering the phone as one of their volunteers

Kevin Warburton used to think life wasn’t worth living. Years of alcohol addiction had sent him crashing to rock bottom and suicide was often on his mind.

At times the only thing that stopped him killing himself was reluctance to put someone else through the trauma of finding his body.

Sometimes at his lowest ebb he would call the Samaritans. His brain was so scrambled he has no idea what they talked about but he is sure of one thing. It helped to save his life.

He never dreamed that one day he would be the person on the other end of the phone line providing the crucial listening ear for others in crisis.

But years later, newly sober and fresh out of rehab, he became a volunteer with the organisation that has been a lifeline for so many since it was founded 70 years ago.

It led to 13 years answering calls with Bury St Edmunds and West Suffolk Samaritans. The commitment was a huge turnaround for someone who had arrived in Bury a few months earlier believing he was “the biggest piece of rubbish to walk this earth”.

Kevin began calling the Samaritans helpline while living in France after a disastrous spell in the Army. But it was not the first time he had dialled the number.

That was a hoax call when he was a teenager and his life had already begun to spiral out of control. Even then the calm reception from the person taking the call stuck in his mind.

Today, Kevin has a home, a job, a partner, and a future. But it could all have ended very differently. He was born in Cyprus, where his father was serving with the RAF, before the family came back to the UK.

“I went to boarding school in Lincolnshire. I was sexually assaulted as a kid for about nine years on and off but I couldn’t say with any certainty whether my life would have been different without that.

“I didn’t have many friends. I was not very confident around people. So being sent to boarding school felt like a massive rejection. Then my parents split up and I just felt like my world had imploded. I became an angry kid at that point - around 11 or 12 years old.

“My dad was an alcoholic, although I didn’t know it at the time. I have an addictive kind of personality. I had already started smoking and stealing alcohol out of my parents’ decanter. “It was around that time I first came across the Samaritans. In sixth form they got people in to talk to us and one week they had a volunteer from the Samaritans.

“I was really taken with his demeanour, very calm and very factual. I thought yeah, yeah, too good to be true. I went out that night and had a few beers and went to a phone box and made a hoax call to the Samaritans. It was exactly what he said. Nobody told me to stop pratting around.

“I never thought at that stage I might have to use the service for what it’s designed for, or even less that I would end up sitting on the other end of the phone.”

He went to college and got a job, then joined the Army which had helped his brother turn his life around. “It had the opposite effect on me. I got progressively more angry. My drinking had increased. I was always in trouble and it felt to me that they were picking on me. It never struck me that every time I was in trouble there was alcohol involved.

“I did make an attempt on my life that time, it didn’t work out and I never spoke about it. It made me feel like a complete and utter failure, not even being able to kill myself.

“I always had a real ‘me versus the rest of the world’ mentality so the help was probably there but I didn’t want it. I did six years in the Army. When I left I think I was frankly unemployable. I was so angry.”

He went to France for his mum’s 50th birthday and didn’t come back for 16 years, earning a living doing building work. “To start with my drinking cut down, because it was another new start for me. But it gradually crept up again and got worse and worse.

“Dad moved to France to live with me in 1999. Two alcoholics in rural France. It was a disaster. Then he moved out, and I got very, very dark in my head.

“The last 10 years when I was drinking I was really constantly suicidal. When I was in the Army I had to clear up after a suicide, and I was the last person to see him alive.

“When I was suicidal I could think of many ways to kill myself, but it was important to me that my body wasn’t found. I didn’t want to inflict that on anyone else.

“At that time I started using the Samaritans. I used to phone them up from France. My mental health wasn’t good and was getting worse.

“I was one of those drinkers who would phone friends in the middle of the night because I had no perception of what time it was. They would either tell me to ‘piss off’ or not answer the phone. Samaritans wouldn’t do that.

“I’ve no idea what I talked to them about but the fact someone picked the phone up and didn’t tell me to go away was massive. Just having someone to talk to was massive … something to hang onto without any shadow of a doubt.

“At the end I got the shakes and DTs so bad I couldn’t work any more. I’d drink when I was awake, then pass out. I only went out to buy alcohol. That was my life.”

Around 15 years ago, a “flicker of reality” made him realise things had gone very badly wrong. It happened in the nick of time.

He arranged to come back to England and stay with a college friend while he looked for a job and somewhere to live.

“The day after I left France was the last day I had a drink. My friend picked me up, took one look at me, and took me to her GP. He said ‘that is one very sick man’ and sent me to hospital. The doctor said if you drink again you will die.”

He went for treatment at the former Focus 12 addiction rehabilitation centre in Bury. “While I was in hospital Focus 12 started phoning me up. I have no recollection of agreeing to go into rehab, but I must have done.

I came to Bury in February 2009. That was when I realised I’ve had enough. I can’t live my life like this any more - although I had no idea how to live a life.

“I was in treatment for three months. In those days the cafe where we went for breakfast was right opposite the Samaritans.

“That kind of set the seed. Then it turned into some kind of bet with myself that I wouldn’t do anything about it. One day I went and knocked on their door and said I want to be a volunteer.

“I was about six months sober at the time, and still living in supported housing. It was emotionally and mentally very precocious of me to volunteer at that stage of my recovery but it was massively important.

“I was amazed that I got through the training. It was the first time in my entire life that I had contemplated doing something for nothing for somebody. And I actually found I had some kind of aptitude for it as well.

“The training taught me a lot about myself. It became a way of me giving back.

“I had received help and support through my life from all kinds of people .. the fact that for many years I threw it back in their faces is neither here nor there.

“To be there and offer support to someone else at the time of crisis is a massively humbling thing to do. When people start opening up to you about things they have never spoken to anyone about before it is a very humbling experience.

“I kept stuff inside me for years and years and years and my macho self-sufficiency nearly killed me.

“Being a Samaritan has made me a better person. When I came to Bury I thought I was the biggest piece of rubbish to walk this earth. Being there for other people did my self-esteem a lot of good.

“I was a Samaritan for 13 years. It was the first real big break I got in my recovery. It helped to save my life. It’s an amazing organisation and I feel proud to have been a small part of it.

He stopped last year due to hearing problems. “I have tinnitus and I’m going deaf. There is no point in blundering on. It’s not the place for ego. So after a lot of soul searching I left.

“It’s an amazing organisation to be a part of and the thing is that you are all there for each other as well. We support each other to support the callers. When I was on the phone to someone I had the whole organisation to back me.”

Kevin still lives in Bury. “I have spent all my life running from me. When I got sober this felt like as good a place as any to put roots down.”

He has gone from living in supported housing, to helping others as a night support worker for people in similar accommodation in Haverhill.

“It’s nice to be there for people when they need you. When people say you don’t understand, I can say well actually I do. I am happy to talk to the residents about where I have been.

“I am a very different person now, but I also know that I have the capacity to be that person again. I have been given a second chance at life.

“Mum died a few years ago but got to see me 10 years sober which is a blessing. My brother is still in France and we have a really good relationship.”

He also has a partner, Annette. The couple are thinking of moving to Cornwall as she has always wanted to live by the sea.

“My last relationship ended when I left the Army. I didn’t feel I had anything to offer and was on my own for nearly 30 years.”

Anna Berridge, director of Bury St Edmunds and West Suffolk Samaritans said more volunteers were always needed to answer calls on the national helpline.

“We have around 84 active listening volunteers at the moment. The more listeners we train the more calls we can take. It's a 24/7 helpline.

“We also welcome support volunteers to help us with IT, admin and fundraising. Fundraising is crucial as we are a charity in our own right and need to raise a minimum of £104 per day to keep the centre open.

“So as well as volunteers we are looking for Trustees to support our fundraising efforts. We are all volunteers. Our only paid employee is our cleaner.”

To volunteer go to samaritans.org/support-us/volunteer

Donations can be made online at Samaritans of Bury St Edmunds and West Suffolk: Help us be here when it matters (enthuse.com)

Cheques can be put through the letter box at the Samaritans’ headquarters at 5 Northgate Business Park, Bury.

Bank details for donations are Barclays Bank. Account name: Samaritans of Bury St Edmunds & West Suffolk. Sort code 20-16-12. Account number: 43319148

To contact the Samaritans helpline call 116123.