Spires founder retires

The Rev. Dan Shackell retires this month as director of Spires, the drop-in centre he founded for homeless and disadvantaged people in Streatham.

"Spires started one Christmas Eve as a soup kitchen," he says. "About fifty people came that very first day. From those small beginnings offering just food, clothes and companionship, it has become a substantial centre offering a huge range of services six days a week."

Spires now has a staff of twelve and about 140 volunteers. Each year they serve around 30,000 hot meals, help over a thousand people with clothing and provide all sorts of other help from haircuts, showers and nursing to addiction advice and computing courses. Two members of staff are dedicated to finding tenancies and helping people keep them; last year they reached about 2,000 people.

That 1989 soup kitchen was a response to Streatham's obvious rough-sleeping problem, initially by people at St Leonard's Church.

Dan Shackell and his wife Aileen were new to the congregation and Dan brought with him ten years' experience as a volunteer with the Social Care Unit of St Martin-in-the-Fields. "I think that's maybe how God works," he says, "we arrived at the right time."

English Martyrs, the Roman Catholic church across the road, quickly joined in. The two churches' spires give the place its name and its solid ecumenical character.

"Over a hundred churches of all denominations support us with volunteers, finance, goods, in all sorts of ways," Dan says, "It's a terrific example of an ecumenical project. You're not aware here which church someone comes from, if any, and no-one ever asks. There's always an extraordinary mixture of people."

For Dan much of Spires' success is due to its volunteers: "They come with all kinds of different skills and motivations, and put themselves out, for no pay, to be alongside people with really quite disturbing problems, and try to help.

"It is simply not true that our society has degenerated and no-one cares. They do care. At Spires people have an opportunity to express their care for folk on the margins and it's incredibly exciting to see them do it in such numbers.

"Another splendid thing is that it's difficult to tell sometimes who is a volunteer, who's a client and who's on the staff .or who's helping whom."

Dan reaches sixty this month - 'an elegant age to stop' - but will return part-time as chaplain after two month's sabbatical: "People do respond to the dog collar. They show in all kinds of ways that they want some kind of bridge to God."

To say that Dan will be missed is of course the most colossal understatement. He has always been Spires' heart and soul. But he hands over with confidence to his successor Frances Newell, a member of St Leonard's congregation.

Dan wanted to thank the countless volunteers, staff, trustees, clients, donors and funders: "It's been really gratifying to have such a response across the Diocese. Special thanks go to the clergy and congregation of St Leonard's who enabled it all to happen."

How many people have been touched in the last fourteen years by Spires and its subtle but persistent gospel ethos? Who knows, but we wish Dan and his family a very happy semi-retirement, with our deepest thanks.

If you would like to help Spires, phone 020 8696 0943.

Rosemary Furber