In reply to stroppygob:
Chad Varah: "Before I Die Again"
Autobiography of an Anglican clergyman - the first church service he ever took as a new curate was of a 13-year-old girl. When they buried her in unconsecrated ground and he asked why, they told him she'd topped herself because she had started to have periods, didn't know what they were and concluded she was dying of some unknown disease. The experience led him to found The Samaritans.
Not for the faint-hearted; highlights include his seduction of 'Cutie' - the kitchen maid at his boys' public school together with vivid descriptions of the ****ing contests boys used to have there to see which one could ejaculate as far as the lintol above the changing-room door. Also his adventures with prostitutes, transexuals, the time he invited a disturbed woman to pee on his office carpet (which she accepted) and his founding of the 'Brenda' line, heavy-breathing phone callers for the use of, to sit alongside the Samaritans suicide-prevention service.
A fascinating social history of the central decades of the 20th century. He knew many of the rich and famous and was not averse to dishing the dirt on some of them.
