Farewell to much-loved Wimbledon ‘local landmark’ and Big Issue vendor Jane Burns

Big Issue is sad to announce that much-loved Wimbledon vendor Jane Burns has died.

The long-time seller once described herself as a “local landmark” in Wimbledon, so synonymous she was with her pitch outside the South London station.

She came to Big Issue in 2002 after injury and illness left the trainee accountant homeless. Burns sold the magazine from her wheelchair after losing her right arm in a motorcycle accident and her right leg to MRSA. “I had a motorbike accident back in 1986 when I was still working,” she told Big Issue in a My Pitch interview. 

“I had nine years of hospitalisation but when I eventually went back to work I collapsed and was signed off for life by the local authority I was working with. I was very vulnerable and ill with anorexia, then I met a man and got married. I found out too late that he wasn’t very nice, things went downhill and that’s what led me to homelessness.”

Burns had to give up her two sons, aged one and three, for adoption due to the complications in her marriage. In recent years, she was able to meet them again for the first time.

Burns’ association with Big Issue started when she met a vendor in Clapham Junction. It would go on to last more than two decades. “I offered to give him a hand. I found out I could sell papers!” she previously told Big Issue. “It gave me a boost and I thought, there’s a way out of this. This is something I can do. That was a turning point for me.”

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Burns, alongside her dog Caz, was popular with her customers on her London pitch and was a fine ambassador for Big Issue. Selling the magazine “gave her a purpose in life”, she said.

“I’m privileged to be working in that environment. To be in the situation that I am in, to enjoy your job, there aren’t many people who can say that.”

Following her death, Big Issue spoke to one of her customers, Steve Gent. A photo­grapher, Gent met Burns back in 2020 and since then had been taking her portrait.

“I usually take one or two photos most times I see her at Wimbledon,” Gent told Big Issue. “I take pictures all the time, that’s just something I do as a hobby, and she was an interesting subject.”

He added: “Jane was always good for a chat before her voice went and many of her customers were very generous.

“I will miss her. She was quite a personality. It was amazing – people saw her and I don’t think it registered that she was selling with one arm and one leg in a wheelchair. She was so resilient.”

Sam, a Big Issue vendor at Covent Garden, also paid tribute to Burns. She said: “I knew Jane for quite a few years and it’s really sad. She was really nice and always happy. Her customers will really miss her, she was always smiling.” 

In 2020, when Big Issue vendors were forced off their pitches during the Covid pandemic, Burns spoke to The Times to tell her harrowing story and call for the public to back fellow sellers. 

“What’s happened to me I wouldn’t change at all,” she said. “It’s made me the person I am. I’m actually glad it happened in a way. I’m a happy person and I appreciate my life more.”

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