The Big Issue’s 2016 calendars are now selling and Mr July is none other than our Sydney vendor Bill.
Bill is the original Sydney vendor starting way back at edition #16 on March 10, 1997.
“Before the Big Issue I had been doing nothing for a while. I tried running a couple of businesses earlier, but couldn’t make it work.
“Glenn came up from Melbourne with one of the other boys and they came into the place where I was staying and said, ‘Does anybody want to earn some money selling something?’
So we went to The Body Shop training room in York Street and then he said, ‘Right, we start this day’, so I said okay. Down we went and started off at the Town Hall steps and that was it.
“The first three years were bloody tough; nobody knew what the Big Issue was. You’d go out every morning and sell maybe four or five. But it started to get known and people started to buy. That’s why at one stage I was the only vendor in Sydney, because nobody could do it. Nobody wanted to do it because there wasn’t any money in it.
“I was extremely lucky early in the piece though because the RTA was in Elizabeth Street. There used to be 300 odd people there and most of them bought magazines. I used to have a pocket full of change on the go but that didn’t matter because the hamburger joint used to love taking them all. So they would be happy taking all the change, didn’t mind at all.”
Bill can be found selling the magazine around Sydney University and some mornings at Central station. Calendars are now available from all vendors for $9.
