Robyn Woof, Middle Meadow Walk, Edinburgh

Photo: Cameron Scally

I’ve been selling the magazine since September I think, and I like it. I love my pitch. It’s busy and you get lots of different people because it’s in the middle of a uni campus, but it’s by a big park as well and it’s pedestrianised so there’s no traffic and lots of trees and green space.

There are lots of people that stop for a chat and some people who stop for a chat aren’t buying the magazine. It’s one of the things I like about the job, just getting to speak to people that you would never normally speak to. I’ve got a card reader and that’s helped a lot because, just with the nature of the pitch, there are lots of people who are young and only use cards. I’d say I do more on cards than I do for cash. Big Issue gave me a voucher for glasses because when I started I only had one pair of glasses that were broken. So that was helpful.

I would say, particularly in The Meadows, there are a lot of community projects around here but it’s very welcoming and they treat me like everyone else. There’s a place where they give out free breakfast to homeless people and they organised for me to get a free bike from the bike shop called Soul Cycles.

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I got started with Big Issue after I got clean in August and I decided to take some time off uni. My previous career was in events which I might go back to at some point but obviously it’s quite triggering from a drugs perspective. I saw a leaflet about Big Issue in the drugs counsellor’s office so I thought I’d give it a go.

I’ve worked in the events industry for like 20 years. I’ve worked at lots of the big festivals but I prefer the small ones. It’s a really chaotic industry. I left school when I was 15 and I only relatively recently got diagnosed with ADHD, so obviously I haven’t been treated for that. It’s an industry where you don’t really need qualifications and I’m trans also – they’re used to people being different and you can progress. For the last few years I have been doing management roles. I do love the industry but I don’t know where I stand with it at the moment just because of the whole recovery thing. 

I was studying civil engineering in Edinburgh. My goal for this year is to definitely work on things and get more stable. My priority is education. My aim is to get back to uni and be better equipped to do it properly. I’m studying civil engineering because I want to work in the wind industry on offshore wind. I’m a few years off graduating, assuming that I go back in September but that is my plan now. Life, as I’ve discovered, is very unpredictable. But it’s a long-term industry and it’s changing things. That’s why I want to do it.

I also like reading and I like making punk DIY cut-and-paste zines. I’ve been making them for ages and I’m doing one about bookshops at the moment. Previous ones I’ve done as big projects for art and music festivals as an official contracted thing. I’m making one about Edinburgh bookshops and my plan is to distribute them a bit and to give them to the bookshops.

Edinburgh’s got a massive housing crisis and the students have an impact on that as well. Although I’ve deferred my course, I’m still the student homelessness officer, an unpaid role, at the student union until June. We’ve wanted the universities to have fewer students for ages because it’s having an impact on student housing and housing in general. We want them to take more of a responsibility towards housing students. I was already living in a caravan when I arrived at university and, to be honest, I was happy. I was happier in my caravan than I am in my temporary accommodation that I’m in now.

Words: Liam Geraghty

Middle Meadow Walk, Edinburgh, UK