As winter draws in, Andy Devonshire, a Big Issue seller, talks about life on the street, uppity Prestonians and battles with the local wildlife.
With a steely exterior
that could only be carved out by our harsh northern weather, and a soft
southern drawl, Andy Devonshire is not your everyday bloke. He is a man who
lives by his own rules, as I found out recently.
Andy sells the Big Issue
to shoppers in Fishergate, Preston. He typically sells 10 to 15 per day, but it
can vary.
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“My heat is more important to me than a five minute fix.”
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“I don’t make a lot of money, and I don’t apply for the dole,” he says. “That’s why I rely on drops, it happens more at this time of year. Sometimes I get a 10 or 20 pound drop. During the day you don’t think about heat and light but at night it matters.”
“I’ve got a
routine to my life and thats‘s the way I like it,” Andy admits.
A typical
day begins at 4am. He wakes up and walks to McDonalds at 5am. After breakfast
and some reading, he sells the Big Issue until 8am when he takes a break. At 9
am, he buys more issues from the local depot and sells until 3pm, at which
point he eats. He is back asleep by 4pm.
Andy
changes location every few months, preferring the change in location: “You find
more interesting people moving from city to city than you ever would staying in
one place. The way I live, every single day I meet someone new.”
However, it was a ‘big
mistake’ coming to Preston as he finds the locals arrogant.
He says: “They’re so
uppity here, it’s unbelievable. People in this town will sooner give a pound to
a smack head than buy a Big Issue from someone like me. They’re giving the
smack head drugs, but not giving me food.
“I
don’t drink. If I could afford it I probably would, it would probably keep me
warmer. It’s too expensive, and if I did, people wouldn’t buy from me. To be a
Big Issue seller, you can’t be on drugs and you can’t be an alcoholic.
“My
heat and my light is more important to me than a five minute fix.”
His didn’t always live
this way. Andy had a successful contracting business until one day 20 years
ago, he came home to find his wife cheating on him with his best friend.
“I
paralysed him from the neck down. Got four years in jail for it. When I came out,
everything was gone.”
Andy has
lived alone in a tent since his time in prison. He keeps warm with a small
brass cooker, which he also uses to cook stews and rice. Many would find such a
lifestyle intolerable, but Andy would have it no other way.
Andy Devonshire Fact File
•
47 years old
•
Originally from
Torquay
•
Living in Preston
since August
•
Released from
prison in 1997
•
Has lived rough
since release from prison
•
Enjoys reading and
listening to the radio
•
Last used his
National Insurance number in 1988
“I think
because I spent so long in jail, I have a fear of being in rooms. I don’t like
being inside buildings. I see houses and think I could never live there.”
In
doing so, he experiences a closeness with wildlife; a fox in particular has
taken a liking to him.
“Where
I am, I could tell you every little sound outside my tent, whether it’s a rat,
fox or badger. I can tell by the way it’s walking, by the way it’s sniffing, by
the way it’s scratching the door of the tent!
“A
fox keeps nudging the tent at night. He only does it when I’m cooking! Then
last night he
One
particular gripe of Andy’s is dishonesty. “Always hated it,” he says, giving an
example from his youth:
“I
always remember that when I was a kid, St Johns Church. Every year they had a
fete, and every year
it
was for the same thing, a new roof. In all those years they had the same fete,
I never once saw a new roof.”
Andy
Devonshire is a man with unconventional views, but despite all that life has
thrown at him, he is adamant that his beliefs have never changed.
“I
live my life the way I want to live it.
I don’t owe anyone anything, and nobody owes me. My attitudes haven’t
changed, I’m still the same person I was before prison. I kept my integrity.”
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