Building the common good
Toc H’s work in local communities offers a thoughtful response to the pressures of life in the actual communities where we work, where social fragmentation, inequality, and isolation increasingly shape everyday experience. Many people live in close proximity to others yet feel disconnected, unseen, or excluded from meaningful participation in community life. Toc H responds by focusing on the social and relational foundations that enable communities to flourish.
At the heart of our approach is a commitment to inclusion, connection, and the honouring of diversity. We understand community not simply as a place, but as a network of relationships built on trust, mutual respect, and shared responsibility. Toc H seeks to create welcoming spaces where people from different backgrounds, identities, and life experiences can come together, form connections, and feel a genuine sense of belonging. Difference is not treated as a barrier, but as a vital strength that enriches community life.
While Toc H does provide services and practical support, this activity is always located within a wider framework of community connection. We do not view service delivery as a transactional process, but as a relational one. Support is offered in ways that respect the dignity, agency, and lived experience of the people we work with. This ensures that individuals are not positioned as passive recipients, but as active participants in shaping their own communities.
Our work is grounded in local engagement.
Toc H supports local communities by listening carefully to what matters to people where they live and responding in ways that are rooted in local context and relationships. This allows us to work alongside communities rather than imposing externally defined solutions. Over time, this approach builds trust and enables sustained engagement, even in communities where confidence in institutions may be low.
We recognise that life in modern Britain often places pressure on individuals to navigate complex systems alone. Toc H offers an alternative model: one that prioritises human connection, shared experience, and collective care. By focusing on relationships rather than solely on outcomes, we help create environments where people feel valued, respected, and connected to one another.
Through this values-based, locally grounded approach, Toc H contributes to stronger, more inclusive communities—places where dignity is upheld, diversity is celebrated, and people are supported to live well together.
Our Values
Toc H values were developed in the 1930's and have been the foundation of our work since – they form the compass that helps us navigate the world and gives our communities a frame to understand us.
We are committed to the values of:
Friendship
Service
Fairmindedness
Reconciliation
Our story starts in 1915, when Reverend Phillip 'Tubby’ Clayton was sent to Poperinge in Belgium on the Ypres Salient, to set up a rest house for troops fighting in the trenches in First World War. The rest house was named Talbot House in honour of a soldier who had been killed earlier in the year.
Our Story
Talbot House soon became known by its initial’s TH and then, in the radio signallers’ parlance of the day - as Toc H. It opened on 11th Dec 1915.
When Soldiers came back from the war they wanted to build on this heritage, and the values formed in the early years. Many hundreds of groups were established across the world in Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, Kenya and Zimbabwe, India, the Caribbean and Canada as well as a significant presence across Europe and particularly the UK. (The picture above is from a Toc H fundraising event in the 1930's)
Toc H was instrumental in the formation of Samaritans and the Blood Transfusion service where our local networks provided the foundation for volunteers and even funding in the early days.
In recent times groups have closed and the Covid Pandemic accelerated group closure. As part of an organisational review, Toc H trustees committed themselves to a new model of working keeping the best of Toc H but linking it to a social enterprise model to maintain sustainability.