Meet your vendor.
I’m the youngest of six. My dad left soon after I was born. I would have been only a few months old. Mum had to raise us six kids alone. I never really got to know my dad, although he’d show up at most family events.
We moved to Windsor when I started primary school. I remember I had to take a tram to school and I was a bit frightened of trams back then. I liked school, especially high school. I had a lot of friends, but most of them left in year 11, or form five back in the 70s, to become carpenters, electricians, apprentices. Becoming a tradie didn’t appeal to me. I loved history and English.
I had three brothers and two sisters. Yeah, we were close. One brother’s gone – my oldest brother, he was 81, 15 years older than me. I lost one of my sisters 20 years ago – young, she had a stroke. So, there’s four of us now. I never got married. I looked after Mum until I couldn’t anymore. Once she had to go to the nursing home, she didn’t last long.
I came to sell The Big Issue through a friend who was a vendor. He told me about this magazine called The Big Issue – that was around 2012 or 2013. On my first day, I bought five magazines and stood terrified outside Westpac on the corner of Swanston and Collins Streets. I was terrified of all the people, you know? I stood there for, I don’t know, three or four hours and didn’t sell a single magazine. I went home and thought to myself, Well, that’s it. Never again. But the next day, I was back and sold two magazines, so that was 200% better than the day before.
Since then, I’ve sold pretty much everywhere in the city. Now, I’m at Parliament, the Bourke Street exit. I get there early, around 8.00am, and I work to about 10.00am. Then I go to Middle Brighton, which is my afternoon pitch. I like it. You get a lot of people visiting. They often stop and ask me, “Where’s the beach?” They all want to see the beach boxes.
What’s the attraction for selling the magazine now? Well, it gets me out of the house. I can’t stay at home all day and just watch TV. I don’t have as much patience for reading like I used to. I’ve read a lot of novels. I like pretty much anything. I’ve read a lot of Harold Robbins. Remember him? His famous book is The Carpetbaggers.
What I’m looking forward to is having lunch with my friend and his wife this Sunday. He’s young and from Iraq. He’s Muslim and prays something like five times a day. He and his brother used to live in my block of flats. One day they decided they would look after me. “In my culture, we look after our elders,” he told me. “Righto,” I said. He was good to me. He used to bring me McDonald’s. I don’t like McDonald’s, but I like him. He’s a good friend.
Geoff sells The Big Issue at Church St, Brighton and at Parliament Station
Interview by Jen Vuk
Photo by James Braund
Published in ed#753