Volunteers from Maidstone's Samaritans campaigned at Maidstone East train station as part of a nationwide push to highlight how listening to another person can be the first step to saving a life.

The charity's annual 24-hour event on July 24, The Big Listen, reflects the availability of Samaritans’ emotional support services 24-hours a day, 7 days a week.

The Samaritans emphasised SHUSH listening tips to commuters - Show you care, Have patience, Use open questions, Say it back and Have courage.

Sue Christmas, Director of the Maidstone branch said: “As many as 1 in 5 adults have thought about taking their own life at some point.When people feel like that, they need to be able to talk about it, which means they need people to listen.

"With The Big Listen, we’re asking people to give, share and save a life.”

Mary Beaumont, a volunteer at Maidstone Samaritans said: "It's something we don't often ask people, or we ask very superficially and we're not expecting an in-depth answer.

"That's what Samaritans do - we stop and take the time to actually ask people how they're really feeling and give them the opportunity to really talk about it. Something we don't often do in our daily lives.

"We never give advice, because we think people know the answers to their problems themselves and that talking things through they can un-jumble what's going on and seek their own solutions which are better than being told what to do, much more powerful."

"We support people in other ways, we go into Maidstone Prison, East Sutton Park Prison, from time to time we go into the homeless centre and the bail hostel in the past. We answer the telephone, people can contact us via text messaging, email, people can write into the written word branch and people can come in and talk face-to-face."

Funds raised from The Big Listen help Samaritans keep its services free for anyone who needs them, as well as helping to recruit, train and support volunteers and run local branches across the UK.