I started with The Big Issue 30 years ago when I was living in Adelaide, right back when the magazine started. I needed something to do, and I’d heard about the magazine from a friend who was selling. Then I moved to Sydney and sold there for a while but moved back to South Australia with a mob called Housing Choices.
What brought me back was my volunteer work at a wildlife park in the Adelaide Hills. It was a family-run park – no government support. I’d known the family for a long time, and, yeah, it was great. I loved it. I love animals. The volunteer work wasn’t like other wildlife volunteer roles – it wasn’t hands-on sort of work like at a zoo. It was more getting data from watching the animals and how they’re acting – what they’re eating, that sort of thing. Did you know South Australia, Queensland and Western Australia are the only three states in Australia where you can hold a koala?
But, living in South Australia, I didn’t get much help. Then a mate from NSW contacted me, and I’ve been here since. I’m not really saving towards anything. I just like selling The Big Issue. It means I’ve got somewhere to be every fortnight, and the extra income makes a difference.
When I’m on my pitch selling The Big Issue, I don’t have a particular style of spruiking. I just go out and say... What do I say? Sometimes I’m quiet. Sometimes I say, “Get a Big Issue magazine. Get yourself a big magazine for just $10” – that gets the people in. I have different customers all the time. I don’t have many regulars, because currently I only sell once a fortnight. That’s the only time I can be on my pitch, because I’m always busy up here in the Southern Highlands.
I’m starting to get more involved again with Street Soccer as well, on Tuesdays every week. I’m not doing it today, because I slept in! It’s just great, getting people out there, basically just having a go, having a kick. You meet different people from different walks of life. I played for South Australia during the Big Issue Street Football Festival in 2013, and we versed all the other states in Sydney on this floating platform in Darling Harbour. It rained the whole time in Sydney. It was really wet. I’ve never been part of the Homeless World Cup, though. Me on a plane? No way!
I recently started volunteering at the dingo centre, which is taking up a lot of my time. Where I live now, I’ve basically got a wildlife park in my backyard. I’ve got wombats, kangaroos… Normally, the kangaroos come in at dusk, and first thing in the morning you see them. We’ve got all kinds of birds. They come in the late afternoon. We’ve got rainbow lorikeets, kookaburras, rosellas, little finches. And we’ve got plenty of snakes, too, in summertime. Ah, red-bellies are more scared of you than you are of them. A brown snake, though? A brown snake you just gotta watch. If they’re in a bad mood – stay out of their way.
Kevin sells The Big Issue outside the Town Hall KFC, Sydney.
Interview by Jen Vuk
Photo by Brent Lewin
Published in ed#770