The buzz never goes, not even after all this time.
When I see somebody stop and buy a copy of The Big Issue there is always a jolt. Stumbling upon it sometimes feels like observing a private ritual. There is frequently a nod, a smile, a look at the cover, an exchange of cash and change, more often now the touching of card reader, another nod and the deal is done.
At Christmas we have around 2,000 vendors across Britain. We try to sell a lot of magazines so that a lot of people will see their lot improved. Sales are coming, thankfully. Every single one matters.
I stumbled upon a sale outside Waterstones on Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow on a Tuesday afternoon two weeks before Christmas. It went much as described. It was really cold, during that atom-shaking frost. And this one sale was very moving because that moment, in the bitter winter, helped our vendor move towards whatever was his necessary goal that day. And the woman happily buying The Big Issue would feel good, and she was getting the magazine.
Journalists are frequently portrayed as tough-nut, weary cynics. They’re really not. They are mostly a mix of nosiness, sentimentality and ego. So I wanted to run up and ask her what she thought of it. I didn’t, of course.
Christmas is a key time in publishing, a time to bulk up for the lean times that might lie ahead. This is compounded for The Big Issue, so we go great guns at this time of year. So much work goes into the production, staff right at the edges of creativity and fatigue, everybody on the front line flat out. Like much of the magazine industry we have moved to a digital focus. Our reporters break news across issues of social justice and housing that others won’t, they bring cost-of-living help and explainers, they’ll also hit with key cultural moments and guides and the sort of insider access that you’ll be gasping to share on socials. There is also quite a lot of jazz.
