The Big Issue

David

David sells The Big Issue at the corner of Rundle and Frome streets, Adelaide.

David was born in Melbourne in its Olympic year (1956), but the first really big event he remembers took place after the family moved to South Australia. He was one of many thousands who watched a certain group of mop-topped Liverpudlians stroll across the tarmac of Adelaide airport.

“I came to Adelaide in 1964 – that was when the Beatles came,” he recalls. “We got to see them – I was only young, but Dad took me down there with my brothers, at the airport.”

And although David still has a keen interest in aircraft – “I take photographs, went to see the A380 that came in to Adelaide recently” – he has since seen enough mop-tops to last a lifetime.

After graduating from high school in 1971, David spent a long time working for the Phoenix Society. “At Phoenix people with disabilities do various things,” he says. “Packaging, stamping things – I was sticking sponges on backing plates for mops.”

David has had challenging times in his life, but has always emerged from them smiling. “My mum told me I used to worry a lot about things, and I did have negative thoughts; thought people were talking about me. I went through special schools, and have been seeing a psychologist and psychiatrist.”

Finally leaving the mops behind in the 1990s, David tried a more varied work diet, delivering leaflets and newspapers before a stint in shopping centres. “I worked at Marion doing trolleys in the car park,” he says. “But I had a few problems – I suffer with anxiety a bit, a mental problem, and a few times I’d go off and have a coffee. My anxiety is getting better now that I’m getting more things in my life.”

Part of David’s improvement can be attributed to finding a job that suits him. “I started selling The Big Issue in June this year,” he says. “I do 4pm till 6pm each day down on Frome Street, and Saturdays and Sundays from 10am to 1pm. I don’t spend much time at the office; I just go out and sell. It’s helped with my money – I saved enough to go for a holiday.”

His time away did not go unnoticed. “A customer said the other day that she was a bit worried about me, hadn’t seen me for a while. She asked: ‘Have you been sick or something?’” David reports. “‘No’ I said, ‘I went for a holiday up to Brisbane to see my mum. I like to see her when I can get some money to go.’”

David is a very good singer, performing karaoke each week and singing tenor in a Glenelg choir called the Singing Magpies. “I love music and am really into that sort of thing,” he says. He may never be as famous as the Beatles but, thanks to his Big Issue earnings, at least he was able to take off from Adelaide airport rather than always watching the planes from below.

by Peter Ascot photograph by Andy Rasheed (eyefood.com.au)