My name is Paul, I’ve been a Big Issue vendor for about two years now. My usual pitch is in Bristol, at Wine Street and Corn Street. It’s a busy area with loads of passers-by because of the market down Corn Street. It’s a farmers’ market on a Wednesday and a flea market on a Friday and Saturday and it brings a lot more people down the street. The people have been friendly, I consider myself a good people’s person who makes friends easily and a good salesman. I’ve got a lot of regular customers.
I’m from the Midlands originally. I’d been working in a factory there but I was made redundant and joint with some personal problems became homeless not long after that. Before I came to Bristol, I had travelled to Brighton the English seaside resort town to get away from it all. I sold the magazine there for about six months but it didn’t go as well there as I had hoped.
I was rough sleeping for about a year after I came to Bristol, sleeping in doorways, tunnels, in the park – I’ve done the lot. There is a lot of homelessness in Bristol, a lot of new faces coming in every day. Eventually I got to a point where I felt like I needed to get my life back on track and thought selling the Big Issue magazine again would allow me to do so. The Big Issue has been good for me because you’re earning your own cash, buying your own food and clothes. And it helps me to manage my money. Last winter my boots had worn thin, with the help of the Vendor Savings Scheme, I saved up £110 so I could purchase a pair of sensible, winter boots – this was such a blessing in the cold months whilst I was rough sleeping.
Through The Big Issue Foundation, I accessed the Vendor Support Fund which helped me to get a driving licence so I had some ID to get into the backpackers’ hostel. They also helped me open a new bank account because I’d lost all my cards. The backpackers’ hostel is okay for now – it’s a roof over my head at least. There are a lot of people coming and going and they’re very nice, but at the end of the day it’s still not a place I can call home.
In May this year I saved up for my contribution to attend an Earn-a-bike workshop ran by The Bristol Bike Project. I worked one-to-one with a bike mechanic for three hours to refurbish a donated bike. I learnt how build a bike from scratch, how to upkeep it and how look after it. The greatest thing about it was that I got to keep the bike after I had earned it.
I had the honour and privilege of being selected as the chosen vendor to sell at the brand new pitch at the heart of the Glastonbury Festival this summer. I was so excited about going, it was my first time there, though I have been to VegFest at Bristol before. It was great, but very muddy, and when the rain came on it made it even more difficult to sell. Luckily, there was some sunshine as well though! I sold 150 magazines between Thursday evening and Sunday lunchtime, which was really good going. Normally it would take me about a week and a half to sell that many so it was really worthwhile. I was staying on the campsite but I didn’t sleep much more than about an hour a night because there was so much going on. And because I went out dancing with The Big Issue people! So it was tiring but worth it. Glastonbury was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me and I’m so grateful that I got the chance to go.
