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Stories

  • Article

Hands-on healthcare

A young hospital volunteer feared her contribution was a long way from the serious business of real healthcare. But time spent painting patients’ nails proved to be a valuable contribution to life on the ward.

  • Article

Life on the line

Former Samaritans helpline volunteer Katy Georgiou recalls the desperate voices she heard during her night shifts, and those whose isolation she helped to alleviate.

  • Article

Befriending heavy breathers

Read the fascinating story behind the rare manual that helped volunteers on one of Britain’s first free telephone helplines to deal with masturbating callers.

  • Article

Remote romance and the common cold

Getting creatively romantic due to a virus sounds all too contemporary, but our archives show what socially distanced seduction looked like seven decades ago.

All stories (31)

Images

  • The immune system: fighting viruses in Kenya. Colour lithograph by Peace Corps Volunteers and PEFPFAR, 2007.
  • The Volunteers' Monument, University of Toronto, Canada: university buildings in the background. Photograph, ca. 1880, of a sculpture (by C. E. Zollicoffer?), 18--.
  • A group of volunteers involved with the Karachi Plague Committee, India. Photograph, 1897.
  • A group of volunteers involved with the Karachi Plague Committee, India. Photograph, 1897.
  • [British Red Cross Society leaflet asking for volunteers to work in their charity shops].
  • [British Red Cross Society leaflet asking for volunteers to work in their charity shops].
  • [British Red Cross Society leaflet asking for volunteers to work in their charity shops].
  • [British Red Cross Society leaflet asking for volunteers to work in their charity shops].
  • [British Red Cross Society leaflet asking for volunteers to work in their charity shops].
  • [British Red Cross Society leaflet asking for volunteers to work in their charity shops].
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