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A HAND UP NOT A HANDOUT

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Hello, my
name is
Lionel.
We’re getting active in The Big
Issue this week. I’m training
for a charity run in Oxford and
building things up slowly. But it’s
only 4k, not like the homeless
people running the Skid Row
Marathon in Los Angeles. See
their story on page 22. I’m also
playing football every week
and trying tennis but I’ve only
played rugby once – I reckon
I’d make a good full-back. The
Homeless International Cup is
taking place on May 12 – the
day I turn 75 – read more
about it on page 26. You can
turn to page 18 to see what
Benedict Cumberbatch
is up to – I’m a big fan of
his films and TV shows.
And there is more
from me on page 46.

INSIDE...

PAUSE
The human body is a
truly remarkable thing

LETTER TO
Vendor photo: Maciek Tomiczek

MY YOUNGER
SELF
Elvis Costello – good at
singing, rubbish at dancing

ELLEN PAGE
It’s hard to return to a normal
life when you’ve been a zombie

Cover photo: ©Sky UK

WE BELIEVE in a hand up, not a handout... WE BELIEVE poverty is indiscriminate… WE BELIEVE in prevention…
THE BIG ISSUE MANIFESTO

Which is why our sellers BUY every copy of the
magazine for £1.25 and sell it for £2.50.
WE BELIEVE in trade, not aid…
Which is why we ask you to ALWAYS take
your copy of the magazine. Our sellers are
working and need your custom.
Which is why we provide ANYONE whose life is Which is why Big Issue Invest ofers
blighted by poverty with the opportunity to backing and investments to social enterprises,
earn a LEGITIMATE income. charities and businesses which deliver social
value to communities.
WE BELIEVE in the right to citizenship…
Which is why The Big Issue Foundation, our
charitable arm, helps sellers tackle social and
financial exclusion.

THE BIG ISSUE / p3 / May 7-13 2018

 CORRESPONDENCE
Write to: The Big Issue, Second Floor, 43 Bath St, Glasgow, G2 1HW
Email: letters@bigissue.com

bigissue.com facebook.com/bigissueUK @bigissueuk @bigissue

I’m glad Bob’s going to be

taking it a bit easier. You both
COMMENT OF THE WEEK deserve a rest.
Chris Shaw, Facebook

The new Street Cat Bob

Change the branding animation series is
wonderful! As an early
childhood teacher, I applaud
I really like the term ‘tough sleeper’ instead I’m really interested in the power of and commend what you
of ‘rough sleeper’. I can’t claim it, but I think language, and how it can be used to lead and Bob together are
it paints an entirely diferent picture. Rough opinion. The way that the media reported accomplishing. I have
sleeper can have many connotations, some the migrants as a swarm or flood are obvious a ginger cat, too. His name
of which aren’t helpful. Desperation, recent examples of this, but there are many is Phil.
weakness etc. ‘Tough sleeper’ feels a little more once you really begin to think about it. Portia Smith, Facebook
more respectful of the fact that to sleep I also think the terms homeless and
rough and survive on the streets requires begging could do with a rethink too!
genuine fortitude. Andrew Birley, email
@PaulaHopes1
Reading @BigIssue
Fill ’Em Up! accommodation and selling it. I am currently on holiday, a pleasure I don’t
Empty buildings. supportable employment staying at a place called indulge in enough. I want to
Homelessness. Use the prospects. REBBHU aims to Emmaus but I know if that tweet every page!
former as part of the solution achieve this through doesn’t work out then the
to address the latter? Nothing partnering with local magazine will still be there
original about that. So why authorities, homeless (or for me to sell.
@BolshieBear
isn’t it happening? Well related) organisations and Angus Meigh, Facebook
Just had a lovely chat
that’s precisely what the construction teams.
with Alex and a wonderful
Repurposing of Empty REBBHU is now seeking James and Bob’s tale purr with Valentine…
Buildings for Beneficial others who would be interested is an inspiration
Homeless Use (REBBHU) in becoming involved or simply Your story changed my views
is trying to establish. anyone who is interested in the of homeless people and the
The problem of idea and has common Big Issue sellers. One time
homelessness is likely self- aspirations. Contact I would hurry by, now I always
evident to Big Issue readers. KennethDAllan@aol.com try to talk, help and to buy
Perhaps less familiar are Kenny Allen, email The Big Issue.
statistics for the number of I’m in my seventies, so
empty buildings. Take a city it’s not just children you’re
like Glasgow for instance. educating. I have all your
The Buildings at Risk Register books and my grandchildren
Scotland records 2,452 all read them.
properties, with 145 in Thank you James – loving
Glasgow alone. the animated Bob – it’s not
Unfortunately, as can best just for children!
be seen from walking the city, June Price, Facebook
all too many buildings have @Bluebell_smith
been allowed to decay, often to Your story inspired me to #WhyBooksMatter
a degree which renders them volunteer for the last Our wellbeing book
virtually uneconomic to two years at the winter exchange is in full swing!
redevelop. So, is this something shelter at the Salvation Thanks to @Bi Issue for
that REBBHU can help Army looking after our donating
address? REBBHU seeks to homeless friends. some fantasti
facilitate mutually beneficial I was lucky to be asked reads, it’s
construction development, to give a testimonial great to know
training and work recently at their church our front line
opportunities for people who Always here to help service and in it I referred staff are
are homeless (or vulnerable to I have been selling the to James and Bob and how taking care of
homelessness), along with magazine on and of since June it opened my eyes to the themselves as
construction professionals and 1996. It is good that The Big homeless and how it can well as others
building trades. Its purpose is Issue has always been there for happen to anyone. A
to create permanent afordable me when I needed to go back to true inspiration.

THE BIG ISSUE / p4 / May 7-13 2018

 THE EDITOR

Big beats and

billionaires - a
way forward

O
ne of the strangest, most heartening stories of last week
involved Calvin Harris and a fish factory.
You’ll be familiar with Calvin Harris. He’s the
Scottish superstar DJ who knows when to drop the beat and make
millions – like a more tanned, taller, dance version of Ed Sheeran.
The fish factory is called Pinneys and is found in the small southern
Scottish town of Annan. It currently employs 450 people and is under
threat of closure. The parent company, Young’s, are planning to shut up
shop and move production to Grimsby. In a further unwelcome twist,
it has emerged that Young’s themselves are now looking for a buyer.
It is a mess.
Harris is involved as he comes from the area and once worked in
Pinneys. When he heard about the threatened closure, he got in touch
with the local council and asked what he could do to help.
The most straightforward answer – buy Pinneys, turn from Dua
Lipa collaborations and become a fish-processing magnate – was, for
commonsense reasons, not the first one.
Conversations are currently ongoing on what practical things
Harris can do.
Do not dismiss this as paying lip service and of scant worth. I think
Harris’ intervention is more than laudable. It is to be celebrated
and amplified. We too often point the finger at those who emerge from a
place, make something of themselves but then move on and pull the
ladder after them. Harris understands the vital importance of this
unfashionable factory to the town – to the employees, to their children,
to the schools, other local shops, to the entire supportive net that
pulses with the lifeblood of a place. He is willing to do something to
prevent the closure.
This must go further. There is a crisis looming across Britain and
Britain’s high streets. In recent weeks, Toys R Us and Maplin have gone
bust, costing over 5,500 jobs. House of Fraser and Debenhams are
Big Issue Invest is
wobbling. Virgin Media let 800 go in recent days.
It matters not a jot whether May or Corbyn are spinning local
election results as positive for them, because on local streets people are
making an impact
suffering and jobs are melting away. Interventions need to come from The Big Issue’s social investment arm
beyond government now. In The Big Issue we’ve spoken about a third Big Issue Invest (BII) is tackling poverty in
way before, about the need, the gnawing, essential need, for local small the UK where change is needed most, its
businesses, many driven as social enterprises, to lead the change and to new Impact Report revealed last week.
bring life back to communities. A total of £10.7m was invested by BII
The Harris intervention has shown that those with real power to in 68 mission-led organisations across the
effect positive change should be called upon too. Go higher for help. UK during the last financial year. Almost
Those who are responsible for the collapse in sales in the first place, the half of the organisations in which BII
titans of the digital world, should be approached. Let’s get them to divert invested – 43 per cent – offer services to
some of the billions they are investing in vanity quests to go to Mars or people with significant additional needs
find eternal lives for themselves into helping the people they’ve or disadvantages, while 61 per cent of BII’s Big impact: Nigel
hoovered up the money from. investees are paying all staff at least the Kershaw and John
We’re in a crisis that needs new thinking. It won’t work by taxation, voluntary recommended living wage. Bird launch the report
but rather by appealing to something within the billionaires’ human That takes the total current
chip. Such rescue packages are not unheard of. Jeff Bezos bought The investment portfolio to £26.4 million
Washington Post and turned a failing heritage brand into something – meaning BII currently has 198 investments in 150 organisations –
that works – preserving jobs, growing influence and providing a with investees in training, education, employment opportunities for
template for new success. disadvantaged individuals and more.
Photo: Louise Haywood Schiefer

How do we get the tech oligarchs together? How do we get them to
use their considerable powers to work for the people atthebottom,ifnot
to aid collapsing companies then to drive training and new skills so the
workforce are ready for the different demands of tomorrow.
Perhaps Calvin Harris will host a party. We can start there.
Paul McNamee is editor of The Big Issue
@pauldmcnamee paul.mcnamee@bigissue.com
Speaking at a House of Lords event to launch the report, chair of
The Big Issue Group, Nigel Kershaw, said: “A lot of great organisations
struggle to access small to large-scale loans, so we set out to provide
support for those social enterprises and charities making a genuine
difference within their communities.
“Big Issue Invest seeks to dismantle poverty. Our investments
empower and resource society to take responsibility for positive change
and we are proud of what we have achieved in a short amount of time.”

THE BIG ISSUE / p6 / May 7-13 2018

 Street art
sprays the
way to shelter
For many Big Issue vendors,
having a canine companion or
a feline friend can offer some
much-needed company while
selling the magazine.
But pets can also be a barrier
to securing accommodation,
with some landlords and night
shelters operating a strict no-animal policy.
In the Brazilian city of São Paulo, shelters were often
left deserted as many of the 20,000 people on the
streets opted not to abandon their animal companions.
So the city council built temporary
accommodation with kennels and
enlisted the help of five street artists
– Galo, Randal, Pixote, Thassio and
René Muniz – via ad agency Nova/sb to
spread the word by tagging viaducts all
over the city.
“It’s like using the public space
as a new way of communication,
and specifically to talk with homeless people,”
said Átila Francucci, creative vice-president of Nova/sb.

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the stories of the people
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ON BIGISSUE.COM
THIS WEEK
• Spinal Tap’s Derek Smalls rewrites
the music manual for The Big Issue
• Jack Sargeant on ho how he’ll use
his role in the Welsh
get justice for his la
father Carl
• Drill isn’t to blam
London’s wave of
crime, says Denzi
Demand for homelessness
services leaves councils
teetering on the brink
Thousands of youngsters at risk of
homelessness were turned away by councils
last year, according to a Centrepoint report.
Ahead of the introduction of the
Homelessness Reduction Act, a series of
Freedom of Information requests revealed that
86,000 young people contacted their local
authority asking for help with housing – but
58 per cent were turned away with no practical
help. Just 13 per cent were housed, while
only a third were given a documented
housing assessment.
The figures call into question whether
cash-strapped councils have the resources to
deal with the increased demands of the
Homelessness Reduction Act. The legislation,
which
w came into force last month, gives
help
th
d of public
s Reduction
ection but it is
absolutely vital that central government
provides adequate funding to allow councils
to fulfil their new duties.”
Big Issue founder John Bird added: “We must
insist that governments, local authorities and
the public get behind the recommendations in
this report and then keep it at the top of the
social agenda. A young person made homeless on
even one occasion is a disturbance for life.”
The scale of homelessness has also come
under the microscope after a YouGov poll
revealed that almost half of Brits think there are
more homeless people in their local area than
there were 10 years ago.
Up to 47 per cent of people surveyed have
seen the issue become more visible – in line with
government figures that have recorded a rough
sleeping rise for seven straight years up to 4,751
people – while only 26 per cent thought the same
when asked by pollsters five years ago. Just three
per cent thought the number living on the streets
was on the decline, compared to seven per cent
in 2013.

THE BIG ISSUE / p7 / May 7-13 2018

 STREET ART
You can buy
prints of some
artworks featured in
Street Art through
bigissueshop.com
At least half of the profit
from each sale goes
to the artist.

UNTITLED
BY M.B.
“I have experienced homelessness and domestic
abuse,” says this artist, who asks to be credited
only by her initials. “I have escaped many
problems and art has helped me on my journey.
I hope my art connects with people who are
marginalised or excluded.”

Street Art is created by people who are marginalised by issues like homelessness, disability and mental health conditions.
Contact streetlights@bigissue.com to see your art here.

THE BIG ISSUE / p8 / May 7-13 2018

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Think of the children.
The market certainly does
T
here is something very strange
about modern childhood. On too
many occasions, parents seem to
be commissioned into bringing
up a member of the aristocracy. The
aristocrat can leave their dirty clothes as and
where they wish. They will be fed, watered
and provided for. They can issue out for the
day, or the night.
I observe this (almost) as an outsider.
I never went through this as a child. Though
it’s alien to my experience, it’s not unknown
to me and I’ve observed this new strain of
child-rearing, this indulged childhood.
A decade and a half ago, I suggested at
a conference that we were missing a trick.
And that some children were being grown
in such a weird way, that it stopped them
from growing. I pointed out that perhaps
– for the first time ever – our children had
no role in life.
That possibly up until the 1970s,
many children had their tasks, jobs and
responsibilities. As a child, I had to work
part-time from the age of 10 to add lustre to
the family exchequer. But that now, our
children had no real role in many families.
From birth to when they leave the nest, they
live in a kind of ‘use vacuum’.
I suggested that children could start
contributing to the family budget, or
volunteer to help those in need.
Unfortunately, this was interpreted by
another speaker as a suggestion that we
put our children up chimneys again as was
done in Victorian times. I was outraged and
protested. All I had suggested was “Let’s
make childhood more dynamic by making it
full of responsibility.”
I was reminded of this when talking to a
mother recently. Her children tell her what to
do. She is extremely unhappy with this
and feels terrorised. She feels that her
human rights are being violated by children
who learn about human rights in school,
but can’t see their application at home.
Photo: PA/PA Archive/PA Images
Is there an ideal way of bringing up a
child? I’m not so sure. I have tried to bring my
own children up through indulgences
and through anger, and that didn’t always
do well. I am not a model parent, but there must
be a way of raising our children so they don’t
terrorise, don’t dominate and don’t act as
members of the 18th-century aristocracy, their
parents as mere vassals.
JOHN BIRD
The post-war English poet Philip Larkin
wrote a poem called This Be The Verse.
“They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They
may not mean to, but they do.” I wonder,
thinking of the terrorised mother, and many
other examples I’ve seen of human rights
abuses by children of their parents, whether
Larkin might have written another poem.
That is, if he moved on to fatherhood himself.
It might have run “They fuck you up,
your children...”
Ungrateful child: Larkin
had no sympathy for
parents’ plight
Of course, blaming children or lax
parenting hides the big elephant in this
particular small room. Consumerism. That
is, the marketplace and the plethora of
things a child must now ‘have’ in order to
exist. Like their parents and like society
in general, we are now so snowed under
with delights and demands that the market-
place encourages us to use. We are so geared
up to consumption that waste of the
physical kind combines with the waste of
the mind.
Children now are a big part of the
marketplace. Billions are spent not (always)
ontheirimprovement,butontheirappetites.
Andatthesametime,wehavechildrenliving
a breadline life, in families that are barely
keeping their nose above water. Alarmingly,
THE BIG ISSUE / p11 / May 7-13 2018
more than two thirds of children living in
poverty are from families where at least one
parent is working.
This contradiction, between plenty and
empty, lies at the centre of modern life. It eats
into our collective happiness. It rots our
democracy. What was Brexit all about if
not this combination of indulgence and
ugly need?
When I saw the terror in this mother’s
eyes recently, I felt that there was a big
human rights abuse happening, but that
it was going unrecorded. That abuse was
happening in a family that is not on the
breadline. And that the bigger the range
of gizmos for entertainment and distrac-
tion, and the more wires you can shove
into your ears to cut you of from life, the
more sufering you add to the world.
The hoovering up of vast amounts of
money into the hands of the few has come
at the expense of our children’s minds and
bodies. Caught in a world of temptations,
Pied Piper-ish, our children are being led
into oblivion by devices and social media,
which seems remarkably anti-social.
Perhaps Instagram should carry a health
warning? A University of Sheffield study
revealed last year that the children who
spend more time on online social
networks feel less happy in almost every
aspect of their lives.
All the while, the fat cats laugh their
way to the bank. And enslavement by the
marketplace runs on ahead of us all.
I read a joke in my local parish maga-
zine recently. A man is being rescued by a
boat from a desert island after five years.
Before he leaves, he’s handed the newspapers
to check for sure that he wants to rejoin
society. Funny, and thought-provoking.
How much of this existing world, with its
endorsement of indulgence – and while
hunger lurks close at hand – actually makes
sense? You certainly wouldn’t plan it this way.
Larkin blamed parents. Perhaps he was
right, and we’ve allowed such indulgences to
gain the upper hand.
But don’t blame the kids! They are
innocents on to which we allow the market
to feast its ugly distortions.
John Bird is the founder and Editor in Chief of
The Big Issue. @johnbirdswords
john.bird@bigissue.com
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 OPINION
Coronation Street is
starting a conversation that
we all need to be having
This week fans of the soap will be rocked by a suicide storyline putting the focus on
men’s mental health. In 2008 Jonny Benjamin stood on Waterloo Bridge, intending to
jump, when a stranger stopped to talk to him. That man saved his life. Jonny, now an
award-winning campaigner, says people have to open up about mental illness

“That’s just mental.” never spoke once about

How often have we mental health when I was
heard this expression, or growing up. The only
even used it ourselves reference I had to it was the
without thinking? The film One Flew Over The
word ‘menta l’ ha s Cuckoo’s Nest, which I was
long been synonymous shown when I was at
with ‘crazy ’, ‘nuts’, college aged 17. The film
‘bonkers’, and many more scared me and stopped me
adjectives with negative from speaking out about
connotations. You roll my own deteriorating
your eyes and tap your mental health.
head: ‘mental’ people are If we can educate people
not to be taken seriously. from a young age about
Better, and certainly mental health and how to
easier, to write them of. talk about it, including
In reality, ‘mental’ is what language to use, it
derived from the late could make a big diference
Latin word ‘mentalis’ (of to many people.
the mind). Now, we all Also, I think just as
have a mind, of course, Coronation Street’s Aidan (played by Shayne Ward) doesn’t open up about his mental illness important as language is
and therefore mental the imagery associated
health, but growing up, this type of schizophrenia are far more likely to be with mental health that we use. Too often
language put me off talking about the victims of violence than perpetrators. That we see people clutching their heads in
mental health issues I was experiencing. is not the perception the general public has distress or curled up in the corner of the
Even as a young child, I was subject to though, and this is very much due to the room when mental illness is featured in
delusions and heard voices in my head, and language the media have always used when the media. Of course at times this may be
later on I became extremely depressed to talking about the condition. some people’s reality when they are
the point where I tried to take my own life Having tried to take my own life, I’m struggling with their mental health, but
at the age of 20. And yet all that time I was often asked how I feel about the expression there are also millions of people in the UK
extremely concerned about what people ‘commit suicide’. The term ‘commit’ is with mental health conditions who are out
would think of me. How would they judge usually associated with something there living and functioning each day who
me? Even after I received my diagnosis it criminal. Suicide was decriminalised in aren’t represented justly in the media.
took a long time to tell friends that I had the 1960s, however, so it seems strange that From the colleague sitting opposite
schizoafective disorder, a combination of we still use the phrase ‘commit suicide’. I you at work to the stranger standing
schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. There have spoken to a lot of individuals and next to you on the train, mental health
is a lot of stigma attached to schizophrenia, families who have lost loved ones to suicide issues afect so much of us in so many
and the media can be less than helpful in and find this phrase extremely upsetting. diferent ways.
this respect. As recently as 2014, The Sun Their loved one who took their own life Therefore, mental illness needs to be
featured the headline ‘1,200 KILLED BY acted in the way they did out of portrayed sensitively, fairly and accurately
MENTAL PATIENTS’. Following a overwhelming pain and despair. It’s a if we really want to remove the stigma
complaint by the mental health charity matter of education in my view. I regularly associated with it that has too long existed
Time to Change, a clarification was used the term ‘commit suicide’ myself until in our society.
printed, but there is little doubt that the a family member of someone who had
tabloids in particular would have you taken his life explained how hearing that With thanks to Britt Pflüger. The Stranger on
believe that all those with this condition phrase always upset her. Now I avoid saying the Bridge: My Journey from Despair to Hope by
are violent and dangerous. Of course the the phrase when talking about suicide. Jonny Benjamin and Britt Pflüger is out now
truth is quite the opposite as all evidence Language is extremely important and (Bluebird, £16.99) @MrJonnyBenjamin
shows that the majority of people with I believe it should begin in schools. We Samaritans are available 24/7 on 116 123

THE BIG ISSUE / p13 / May 7-13 2018

 PAUSE

Illustration: Mitch Blunt

DR CLAIRE SMITH

How to learn the secrets

of the human body
Y
our body is a tr uly skin. Yes, your skin is an organ. You can see some of the skin’s have the most. You might have
amazing piece of kit. It It is roughly two square metres functions just by looking at the noticed that the veins on the
built itself from just two in size. back of your hand or arm. On back of your hand are not the
cells to millions of cells in no T h e s k i n h a s e i g h t close inspection, you might same as those of a friend. This is
time at all. Early in development k e y f u nc t ion s : notice your skin has termed natural variation. While
you were just two layers of cells. s e c r e t i on (a n a slight sheen: this there is a ‘generic’ map of major
One layer goes to make the oi ly s u b s t a nc e is the sebum which arteries, veins and nerves, each
placenta to support you and the known as sebum assists your skin in one of us varies. This variety can
other will become you (its keeps skin supple); being supple and be quite rema rkable. For
technical term is the epiblast). heat regulation; able to move over example, one muscle in the body
While still in development you absorption (medi- joints. You may be known as palmaris longus is
underwent radical changes to cines can be able to see a absent in 1.5-63.9 per cent of
give you the physical form of the absorbed through network of veins on individuals, depending on where
body you have today. For the skin); the back of your in the world you are from. This
example, your eyes started off protection (against Secrets from Within hand. Notice how muscle is located on the inside of
more where your ears were and bacteria and the Human Body is they can become your forearm and is used to
moved around to the front of UV rays); elimina- at Brighton and slightly raised and weakly flex the wrist and to
your face as your nose and t ion (tox i n s i n Sussex Medical more prominent tense the skin and fascia in the
mouth formed. At birth, you sweat); sensation School on May 8 when you are hand. It is thought that in
started off with 300 bones that (touch); producing as part of the feeling hot. evolution this muscle would
over time fused to give you the vitamin D; Brighton Fringe You will already have helped us climb, but is
206 you have today. a nd , l a s t ly, brightonfringe.org be aware that your no longer as necessary as it
Within your body you have a melanin produc- skin is packed full once was.
variety of organ systems – some tion. You need to of nerve endings To find out if you have this
you may know, such as the look after your skin. While it and is hence very sensitive in muscle, either come along to our
respirator y system or the needs exposure to the sun to places. The map of the body Fringe event at Brighton and
reproductive system. One organ make vitamin D, which helps to whichshowsthenerveendingsis Sussex Medical School or watch
system is often forgotten, the build healthy bones, too much known as a homunculus, and the our video online:
integumentary system or the exposure can cause skin cancer. mouth, eyes, genitals and hands youtube/fBgNxlT9MaQ

THE BIG ISSUE / p15 / May 7-13 2018

Elvis IN 1970
THE YEAR
ELVIS

Costello
Bespectacled tunesmith
COSTELLO
TURNS 16…
Dana wins Eurovision
for Ireland / Jimi
Hendrix dies of an
overdose aged 27
/ Apollo 13 returns
safely to Earth after
abandoning its planned
moon landing
 LETTER TO MY YOUNGER SELF
A
t 16 I had just moved to Liverpool with my From the start I knew my band was way better
mother, after my parents separated. I had to than all of our contemporaries. We could play them of
go to an all-boys school which I didn’t like at all. the stage. So if we were on a bill with someone else, we’d
But I lived 10 minutes from Anfield stadium – you only say, “OK, you can close the show, we’ll go on before you.
had to open the window to hear if we’d won. So that was Let’s see what happens.” That was childish. But we took a
good. And I had some good friends. We were all just mad delightindoingthat.Andthatwastheclosestweeverwere
about football and music. We had a common room with a as a band, as a four-man gang. But in the end, it was always
record player, we listened to Radio Luxembourg, we were me writing the songs and me saying where it was going to
able to go the odd concert. Did I appreciate all that at the gonext.Bythemid-Eighties,itwasclearthegroupwouldn’t
time? I think I did. Especially those occasional early stay together much longer.
concerts. I still remember every minute of them. Seeing I didn’t hear Elvis Presley until about 1962 when
Joni [Mitchell] at the Free Trade Hall just before Blue was a neighbour brought over It’s Now or Never. I thought
released – that was really something. it was fucking terrible. Can you imagine how square that
A lot of people read my book and said it was all sounds to a nine-year-old? I can’t stand country music
about my dad. I think that’s probably because you don’t anymore.Areyoukiddingme?Mainstreamcountrymusic
tend to write about the person who just takes care of you is the worst music I’ve ever heard in my life. These people
every day. My mum worked really hard, like most single are ludicrous. And I really hate rock music now, it’s so
mums. She had a couple of jobs at one point, in an office boring. The diference between rock and rock’n’roll is the
and a dodgy gig as a chemist’s assistant in the middle of absence of swing in the former. It just doesn’t swing at all.
Liverpool, which could be dangerous late at night. But she Not like Jerry Lee and Little Richard. I’m not making rock
couldhandleherself.She’snotafraidofmany music,regardlessofwhatiTunestellyou.I’m
thingsandshe’sprettyquickwithhertongue. making pop music with swing.
I can still count on her counsel now, and she’s I’d love to go back and tell my
in her 90s, which is pretty amazing. 16-year-old self that one day he’d
I wasn’t tremendously confident as a collaborate with Paul McCartney. Can
teenager. I’m an only child. I hadn’t worked you imagine? I’ve also written for Georgie
out what I wanted to be. The look around me Fame which would really excite the 11 or
went from being moddy – short hair, sharp 12-year-old me. Georgie was as least as
suits – to having your hair over your ears in influential on me growing up as The Beatles.
the early Seventies. I didn’t suit that. I was Georgie Fame was a 21-year-old kid from
listening to Tamla, as we called Lancashire, an organ player – only 10
Motown, and Joni, but no one else years older than me – and he was
admitted to liking those. They were making the hippest music you ever
listening to prog rock, Emerson, Lake heard, with elements of jazz, calypso
& Palmer – are you kidding me?! I told and ska. Before I even knew the name
them I liked the Grateful Dead to get of these types of music, I was learning
them of my case. about them through Georgie Fame.
The way I looked in the early My only regret is that I’m not
days was partly down to my natu- better at expressing joy.Astimehas
rally argumentative, contrary gone on I’ve become more sure that
nature. I’d tried growing my hair but makingsomethingbeautifulisnothing
I didn’t look good. And it never From top: The “uncool” Elvis on the cover of his 1977 to be ashamed of. Things don’t have
debut album My Aim Is True; with his wife,
occurred to me to buy the punk jazz musician and singer Diana Krall, in 2009 to be weak to be beautiful, they can be
uniform. So I cut my hair. I only owned strongandbeautiful.Thereisstrength
two suits and one pair of shoes. What I’m wearing on the in looking into the darker things in life and pulling
cover of my first record, that’s one of the two outfits I something beautiful and useful out of them. When I was
actually owned. It wasn’t a ‘look’. The only contrivance younger I was very focused on being diferent to everyone
was my manager saying, OK, you have to wear glasses but else. I have a wider perspective now. But also, there are
let’s not go with these wire ones that make you look like songs on my very first record that are angry, about
a murderer. Wear these big black ones which are so exposingbigotry,whichIthinkarestillworthdoingtoday.
Photos: Camera Press / Andy Gotts; Desiree Navarro/WireImage

obviouslyuncoolit’llmakeacoolthingoutofbeinguncool. If I could go back to any moment in my life... it

I’m kind of awkward. I can’t dance. I’m left-handed. sounds sentimental but I’d probably be in the back
I don’t fit into the right-handed world, which is a big of a small car with my parents driving north to visit
conspiracy against us left-handed people. I’m physically my grandmother. This was before my parents
awkward and I’m also awkward in attitude. I don’t like separated. I suppose it’s about security. The three of us
being asked for my papers. So when I became a perform- safely contained inside that little box, going somewhere
er I was like that for a while. I wouldn’t answer interview we wanted to go. Me with people I completely trusted and
questions or there was a period I just didn’t speak at all. I no one else. Drinking warm tomato soup out of a flask. I
don’t think I was being rude – I’m actually naturally shy. remember the feeling of having everything I could ever
But then it became an act, and I couldn’t stop. If I could possibly want. And no other soup in my life has ever tasted
go back I’d advise myself against letting that happen. I’d as good to me as that soup.
say, try to recognise the line between a good self-defence
mechanism and a theatrical construct. And look out for
the point when you are no longer working your life, it’s Elvis Costello & The Imposters play shows in Nottingham
working you. When you’re walking around with a little (June 15), Cardif (June 17) and Edinburgh (June 24) as part of
suitcase with nothing but your bank book and a bottle of a summer European tour. For full details, visit elviscostello.com
gininit,you’reprobablyheadedsomewherenotverygood. Interview: Jane Graham @janeannie

THE BIG ISSUE / p17 / May 7-13 2018

“LOVE
CAN WIN THROUGH...
BUT BOY DOES IT
STRUGGLE
TO GET THERE”
Money, debauchery and drugs.
Benedict Cumberbatch’s new drama
is an enticing prospect but, as he tells
Adrian Lobb, it cuts to the heart of a
rotten class system
“I’ve cracked on with it since we last spoke, In Time which aired last September, for the
haven’t I?” first time Cumberbatch is in full control of his own
Benedict Cumberbatch’s recent achievements are quite artistic destiny.
dazzling when spoken out loud. So far, most of the films and TV shows SunnyMarch has
Saving (or potentially destroying) half the universe as announced will star Cumberbatch. But how does it feel to
Doctor Strange in Marvel’s record-breaking box office be involved in the creative process from page to screen, using
smash Avengers: Infinity War, finishing Sherlock – for now his star power to shape the culture?
at least, getting an Oscar nomination for The Imitation “Oh, god, that sounds terrible,” he says. “Like I’m deciding
Game, starring in a sell-out run of Hamlet at the Barbican, what TV or movie you watch.”
being made a CBE, performing on stage with Pink Floyd, Well, next up he’s making us watch Patrick Melrose,
marrying theatre director Sophie which explores issues around class,
Hunter and becoming a parent. And now addiction, abuse and survival. It’s
he’s playing his most extreme character He’s a fear and loathing in the aristocratic
to date – damaged, drug-addicted, marvel: But set – and Cumberbatch is perfect for
debauched high-society playboy Patrick Cumberbatch is the role.
Melrose, in a TV adaptation of Edward reluctant to He describes the series as ofering
St Aubyn’s high-octane novel series. take over the a “scalpel-like post-mortem of an
world with his
“I have squeezed quite a bit of life upper-class system that’s crumbling”.
own productions
in, you are right. Who would have And Melrose himself, whom
known?” he says. “It is extraordinary. Cumberbatch will play in his early
I’ve been a very lucky man. I have a lot twenties in the opening episode right
of people to thank, because it has been through to his late forties in the finale?
a wonderful time. It really has.” “He’s addicted to drugs and near
It’s not all luck, though, right, suicidal, but also incredibly funny and
Benedict? You’re allowed to take a bit brilliant,” he says.
of the credit. For the role, he spent time with
“Of course. Of course it takes hard the Liverpool-based 3D Research
work and all of it is the result of Bureau to learn more about addiction
something, but I often just stand back and abuse.
and go: ‘How? Why?’ It is extraordinary “Most important was the drive
that all this stuf keeps happening to behond the appetite, the addiction, the
me,” he splutters. psychological need these destructive
“And yeah. It reminds me, every step, how lucky I am.” drugs create,” he explains. “What are they replacing? With
Visiting Comic-Con last year, where he signed heroin, pretty much everyone I’ve spoken to says it’s about
thousands of autographs and posed for pictures with the warm embrace you never got from your mother. The
hardcore fans, was, he says, a reminder of how far he’s come. relief from the sufering of existence.
“People dress up as all sorts of things. There is a lot “The type of person who struggles with addiction, the
of Star Trek and Strange and Sherlock, of type of person who has experienced abuse, sadly ranges
course,” says the 41-year-old, who across all class divides and so there is a universality to this
recently defended the hardcore that I think will translate.”
fandom, describing Sherlock It’s not all money and debauchery and damage and
co-star Martin Freeman’s destruction, says Cumberbatch (although some might
comments about them taking dispute this after watching episode one). “This story is
the joy out of the show about how the true wealth is love, and how true, pure,
as “pathetic”. good, innocent love can win through. But boy does it struggle
“What I love about what I to get there.”
get to do is that I don’t have The actor lists Big Little Lies and Twin Peaks among his
to sit in a role for long. But own recent television highlights, plus Al Pacino in The Panic
then you put your arm round In Needle Park, which he watched as part of the mood music
someone to pose for a photo for Melrose.
and they go: ‘I really loved But it’s the role as executive producer that has captured
you in Stuart: A Life his imagination just as much as the on-screen hijinks.
Backwards ’. That is “It has been a big learning curve, and a blissfully happy
lovely. There is a huge experience for all concerned. It really worked. It really is a
amount of emotion people business and if you get that alchemy right, and choose
attached to so many of a good, industrious, challenging and kind team, you make
these roles for me and I for a really good working environment which is very
am quite sentimental productive,” he says.
about some of them.” “What is exhilarating is the chance to be creative in
But where is he going diferent ways. We are making the kind of content I would
next? Well, having like to see and I am proud of – that is really thrilling.”
launched production He speaks at length of wanting his company to work
company SunnyMarch differently. To create a positive and happy creative
– the brains behind environment. Without mentioning names, he talks of
BBC One’s The Child productions he has worked on that he fears have been a

THE BIG ISSUE / p19 / May 7-13 2018

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 nightmare for some members of the crew. Cumberbatch
repeatedly comes back to the word “kindness”.
“As a culture and as a town we’ve had a really bruising
time,” he says, when pressed on why kindness is so
important now.
“But the thing that has triumphed over all of the atrocity,
whether it is the horror of Grenfell or the [terror] attacks
is kindness. The extraordinary heroism and kindness, the
stories where you hear of human nature prevailing. And
you have to hold on to that in dark and difficult times.
“And even before that, it was something I wanted to set
up as an ethos in general. From my experience, really good
stuf comes from it. We are making entertainment. Of course
it can be educational or socially motivated to make change
but you have to go into it enjoying it. Good work made under
terrible conditions is still good work. But you don’t get much
repeat business and it sours it for those that are part of it.
“It is blatantly possible to do good work and have a good
time. So why not foster that ethos?”
If SunnyMarch is founded on kindness, it feels important
to press Cumberbatch on its commitment to diversity
and representation. Not least because the actor has
come to be the poster boy for the wave of privately
educated British stars taking over the increasingly global
acting industry.
Will he make sure on and off-screen diversity and
representation are at the forefront of his work as a producer?
“Absolutely,” he says quickly. “One of our missions is to
create far more important, challenging, interesting
positions for women in our industry.
“We are doing that with how we staf our company as
well as what focus we have in our work. I’m very aware of
saying all this, but at the moment it is boring old white,
male, public school, whatever-you-want-to-call-me me
beginning this – because I can bring money and attention
to projects.
“But our company is also establishing its own credentials
from the quality of that work and how it comes to fruition,”
he continues. “And that is when we can really set sail with
some of those goals, which includes diversity across the
board – gender, racial, sexual orientation.”
Cumberbatch was scornful of
Martin Freeman’s grumblings –
you don’t have to be Sherlock
Holmes to see that’s awkward
THE BIG ISSUE / p21 / May 7-13 2018
“I’M AWARE IT’S A
BORING, WHITE,
PUBLIC SCHOOLBOY
DOING THIS”
Once SunnyMarch is an established part of the culture
industry, what can we expect?
“Every kind of storyteller telling every kind of story,”
he says. “We are not going to be doing cookie-cutter,
homemade-jam drama. We are going to be doing
in-your-face everything.”
He doesn’t leave it there. It is a subject he has thought
long and hard about. And he seems at pains to explain
himself and leave no possibility of being misunderstood or
misquoted – particularly in the face of criticism on more
than one occasion, either for his role in projects that are
overwhelmingly male and pale, or for agreeing to play a
Romany bare-knuckle boxer in Gypsy Boy.
“The problem is I really want to talk about it but I can’t
as it is not good producing practice to talk about projects
that are in development – because if for one reason or
another they don’t survive or work, it looks like hot air,” he
says, before laughing, and adding. “Which, equally, I realise,
not telling you what the projects are also sounds like!
“It is a great question and I would much rather answer
it with the proof of our slate in a year’s time, with what
we have managed to achieve and what is known to be
going into production. I can’t. It is a Trojan Horse and not
good politics.”
With his new producer hat comes new headaches, then.
“It is not just plot spoilers as an actor,” he says. “As a
producer, you can’t even talk about projects. But there is
good stuf happening.
“There will be other times when that conversation can
be had and backed up with hard facts rather than just
good intentions.
“Look, I started this because of certain moments that
shall remain nameless when I went, ‘God, I think this
can be better for the crew’. I think people should really
want to do this job, not just to have it on their CV but also
because they will do good work and have a good memory
of the job – not just hours of torture when they don’t get
to see their family.”
Patrick Melrose begins on May 13, 9pm, Sky Atlantic and Now TV
@adey70
THE BIG ISSUE / p22 / May 7-13 2018
For LA’ss hom
homeless population the streets symbolise their lowest
point. But enter one remarkable judge with a trailblazing running
programme and now those same pavements are lighting the way
to recovery. Words: Adrian Lobb
“Running is a beautiful thing. There notorious area of downtown Los Angeles
is no better feeling I can explain than and home to some of LA County’s 58,000
finishing a marathon. You have got homeless population, showing how the
to endure, it’s mind over matter, and simple act of running together, as a
shows if you put your mind to it you community, as a team, can lead to
can do anything.” real-life change for people who have
These are the words of David Askew, experienced homelessness.
who spent 10 years homeless – and who “You have three days a week where you
now runs marathons around the world. are spending a couple of hours with
His is one of many remarkable stories people who genuinely care about you. You
told in powerful new documentary Skid can sort through your problems,
Row Marathon. The film follows a celebrate your successes, if you are
running group set up by Judge Craig feeling down you are going to be with
Mitchell in 2011 for residents of the people who uplift you,” Mitchell explains.
Midnight Mission shelter in the most The Superior Court judge says his

THE BIG ISSUE / p23 / May 7-13 2018


“After 29
years in jail I
was an alien
in your world”
I met Judge Craig Mitchell in 2004 when I was in prison. He was at my
parole board hearing as deputy district attorney to say if I was a threat or
not. Most would have said ‘this guy should never go home’. I didn’t get
parole but we started a correspondence that lasted until I got out in 2011.
I would send him 16-page letters, about everything. When I got out after
29 years, I didn’t know where I was at. I was an alien in your world.
The majority of my life had been in jail. I ended up near his
courthouse, so I walked into the courtroom. It was like a bomb dropped.
Everyone looking at me – all the lawyers. I asked to see Craig Mitchell.
He jumped off the bench, came up to me and he gives me a hug. First
time we had seen each other for seven years. Soon after that I’m at his
house. From a prison cell to a judge’s house, meeting his family.
When he started the running club I couldn’t run one mile. I ended up
going with him, running with people from Skid Row, with people who
are homeless, using drugs and alcohol – it felt like I was back in prison
for a little bit. I have a lot more in common with the people that live in
the Midnight Mission than Craig does. I understand some of their
setbacks and tension and stress in their lives, so I was able to connect
with them. I was making strides and they were looking at that – if this
guy can come out of prison after 29 years then I can do that.
When you are running with people, you become like a family, a bond
forms. We’re also keeping in touch when we’re not running. This is like
my second family – and for some it is like their first family.
THE BIG ISSUE / p24 / May 7-13 2018
running sessions with the Skid Row Running Club
act for him as “a regular tutorial in the fact that I need
to make sure I hear and understand the backstory of
all the people that come into my courtroom”.
This remarkable man has a habit of changing lives.
In the early days, four or five runners – homeless,
recovering from addiction, or recently released from
prison – would join him. Now 40 or more join the
62-year-old and a team of mentors at 5.45am to pound
the LA streets three times a week. And his fundraising
has enabled group members to run marathons in Accra
in Ghana, Rome and, earlier this year, in Jerusalem.
“It is the human interaction that is the magic
component in our programme,” Mitchell says. And
the numbers of people who need that support is
spiralling before his eyes. “At this point there is not
the political will nor the commitment on behalf of
the wider community to seriously address it,”
he adds.
“It is part of my faith, that every human being has
worth, has dignity, deserves to be respected and
understood. Homelessness or addiction doesn’t afect
one-dimensional people. They are where they are
because of a complicated series of events or
circumstances. And if anybody is interested in doing
anything about that, the complexity of their
circumstances needs to be appreciated.”
And Mitchell, who previously worked as a high
school teacher in South Central Los Angeles before
turning to law, has first-hand experience.
“When I was in college I lived in my car,” he says.
“I never thought of myself as homeless, but from this
vantage point, I guess I was. I would go behind the
restaurant where I worked and fill up buckets of water
to take a shower. At certain points in your life, if you
can get the right support and the right opportunity,
your life can play out very diferently.”
 “The
weight
drops of,
you find a
girlfriend”
I play music. I wanted to get in a signed band and I
The Big Issue is proud to be a media partner was in the Eighties and Nineties. I got to the life I
for Skid Row Marathon. A short Big Issue thought I wanted, I met all my heroes and I should
promo film will run after every screening, and have been over-the-moon happy. But I hated myself.
will be seen by more than 1.5 million I felt like a fraud and a phoney. I kept drinking.
cinemagoers. Picturehouse Cinemas have When I went to recovery meetings they would
offered our vendors complimentary tickets to smell drink on me; I thought I could hide heroin.
screenings of the film – and look out for Then I went down that rabbit hole. I was on four
vendors selling the magazine at screenings bottles of vodka a day and $360 of heroin and
around the country. cocaine and pills and whatever the hell else.
And I kept waking up every morning. I couldn’t
die. I ended up on Skid Row and I had been in the
Midnight Mission for six months when Judge
Mitchell came in and started the running club.
I initially disliked the judge because he was a
judge. I would run down the block and throw up.
You think about all sorts on a long run. And then
the weight starts dropping off, you get the runner’s
high, you find a girlfriend – it’s more than running.
Recovery and running go hand in hand.
I got into the San Francisco Conservatory for
Above left: Mitchell has
Music, as you see in the film. I sat in the front of the
changed lives; Rebecca, class, allowed myself to be open to the younger
above right, was on kids and got the excitement back instead of being
the streets with her jaded. I’m now a Composer Fellow at the Street
baby before going to Symphony in LA, which is headed by members of
Midnight Mission and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I work hard. But
taking up running; right: without help I don’t know where I would be.
58,000 people in LA
County are homeless

Mitchell took part in this year’s London Marathon

“A
“Addicts
ccan become
somebody great”
I was one of the first to join the running group. While I was in the
Midnight Mission, a friend introduced me to Judge Mitchell. I’m an artist,
he saw my work, and commissioned me to do a piece for him.
After that, we became friends and he asked if I was interested in
running. I wasn’t much of an athlete in high school but he talked me into
it. I went on a run with him. It helped me tremendously with my self-
esteem. For our first international trip we went to Ghana and ran a
marathon there. That was a life-changing experience for me, meeting
new people in the country from my culture and learning about my history.
We also ran a marathon in Rome. I was working at the time, but Judge
Mitchell told me it would be a life-changer to see all the Michelangelo
works and the Sistine Chapel. What a beautiful experience. Running is
also a beautiful thing. The film shows the world that addicts can become
somebody great.
Right now, I lost my job, but I have faith that God will bring something
my way soon. But I am great, man. I am still alive. I am on my way to finish
off a painting. So as long as I am still breathing I have a chance. Anybody
can come out on top. I was homeless for 10 years. But you know what? It
made me who I am today. From there to where I am now is a big step.
(his 71st), and beforehand took time to go for a training
session with The Running Charity, a group whose work
with young homeless people, aged between 16 and 25,
mirrors his own.
“It is a journey from A to B, spiritually, physically
and mentally,” says Claude Umuhire, programmes
officer with the charity, which works with young people
in London, Manchester, Glasgow and Newcastle.
“We go into hostels, we take young people out
for runs, we encourage people to set goals – a lot
of the time these young people haven’t had anything
to look forward to. Having them set goals and
achieve them is something no one can take away
from them.”
Like Mitchell, Umuhire knows the reality of
homelessness. “I was homeless after dropping out of
university. Once you are in a dark place, it is often hard
to see a way out. Running with The Running Charity
became a tool for me – a way of seeing light at the end
of the tunnel.
“Once I got ready to go with the group I wasn’t
homeless, I was just a person trying to go for a run.
And when I finished the run I was a better person than
I was when I started.”
Skid Row Marathon shows at 111 cinemas across the UK on
May 9. Find a screening at skidrowmarathontickets.co.uk
@adey70

THE BIG ISSUE / p25 / May 7-13 2018

 e
Cup got th
rld and
eless Wo offer a h by
om t to ug
fo otball H sing spor omeless R it.
The by u w, H with
all r olling globe. No a and run
b he de
p a c ross t k up the i eraghty
u ic G
s to p rds: Liam
want W o

School of Hard
Knocks is kicking social
exclusion into touch

The Homeless World Cup has been an enormous
success – using football as a vehicle to bring
together homeless people from all over the world
to tackle poverty since 2003.
Charity worker Darran Martin saw the tournament
kicking on and was inspired to set up an equivalent
– this time with an egg-shaped ball.
The sport fanatic launched Homeless Rugby in 2013
then hit the road and pitched his plan to Aviva
Premiership and second-tier Championship sides,
ofering them a chance to get his idea of the ground.
Worcester Warriors answered the call and this
weekend the Homeless International Cup will return
– a six-a-side touch rugby tournament which will see
teams from England, Scotland and Wales face of at
Warriors’ Sixways Stadium.
“I think once we had seen the football take of
it was all about thinking about what a rugby version
would look like,” says Darran. “Homelessness
afects everywhere all over the world and rugby is
also played all over the world, and we want to bring
those two things together.
“If you have a team anywhere then we want to hear
from you, we want Homeless Rugby to be as open and
as accessible as possible.”
Teaming up with Worcester YMCA, Warriors
established the first homeless rugby side in England
in 2013 and went on to win Premiership Rugby’s Play
Award at the House of Commons the following year.
Now the team is playing up to 50 matches a season
against anyone who will take them on.
And the man tasked with coaching the outfit,
Worcester Warriors community education programme
director Dave Rogers, insists the tournament has come
a long way already – and is hoping that a scrum of
nations will follow in the next few years.
“The football Homeless World Cup is massive and
we are looking to follow that model long-term,” he says.
“But rugby is also massive in certain areas of the
country and the sport can have a huge impact. Take,

THE BIG ISSUE / p26 / May 7-13 2018

for example, that the first homeless touch rugby team
was started in Worcester – it’s not where you would
expect something like this would start. “That’s the
“Our team’s
same case for the Welsh team in Newport. We want
to keep building on it – the event this year is in
getting
Worcester again but we want to take it to Scotland and
Wales, we want to get Ireland involved and we want
women
to take it further. Why not to France? Or Italy?” involved
Scotland joined the fray in 2016, working with
housing association NG Homes and their course-led too”
approach, which includes rugby project School of
Hard Knocks, which went on to be the subject of
a Sky TV show. The tournament became a “How the team actually works in Scotland is quite different to
tri-nations clash the following year with links to Welsh England and Wales,” says Greg Cann, Homeless Rugby Scotland
side The Dragons. director and NG Homes Pitstops project manager. “It is run out of our
Of course, victory is not only measured by the Pitstops programme and we largely work with post-course engagement
overall winner of the tournament – work off the so if people enjoy courses like School of Hard Knocks and want to do
pitch is just as crucial. Every player lining up on more then we give them the opportunity to get involved with the
Saturday will have their own story of mistakes and rugby and turn their course into activity.
misfortune. But playing team sport provides a “We were the only truly representative team at the tournament last
distraction and gives often-isolated people a chance year with players from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Falkirk. And this year
for much-needed socialising, reducing the strains on we will also be a truly mixed team with five or six women involved too.”
mental health that homelessness brings.
Skills that are transferable to life of the pitch also
figure, with the chance to develop discipline and
leadership. It also gives that all-important boost to
players’ confidence and self-esteem.
And rugby’s relatively lower profile compared to
“This year
football can work in its favour, says founder Darran.
“Rugby is a great leveller. So many people have
we’re coming
played football before and some haven’t and so there
is a diference in skill levels,” he adds.
back to take
“A lot of the people who play rugby with us have the trophy”
never played before – everyone is starting from the
same point and going on the same journey so rugby
has a lot of value in that sense. And people have shown
that, by playing, they have built up good leadership Callum House, homeless rugby co-ordinator, runs Wales and the
and other skills that can transfer of the pitch.” Newport Gwent Dragons Homeless Team, set up in October 2016
England player Richard Oxenbury knows this after a phone call from Worcester. They played their first match
more than most. that December.
He had not played rugby since his school days when “I ran the Newport Dragons homeless team when Dave invited us to
his key worker introduced him to Homeless Rugby play Worcester in an international fixture last May and it has really gone
while he was in Worcester’s YMCA in 2013 and up a gear this season,” he says.
recovering from spiralling drink and drug problems “Last year’s tournament was terrific. We hadn’t really had many
that cost him his job and home. fixtures beforehand but we still played really well – everyone just goes
“Playing rugby helped me get through all the stuf up a level at the tournament – and we just came second to England.
that had led to me being homeless – all the drink and This year we’re coming back to take the trophy.”
the drugs – because I could keep myself busy and not
think of anything else,” says Richard, 29, who is now
a delivery courier.
“This definitely put me on a positive path and I’ve
now got myself a home, into full-time employment and “Being part
I have a partner and two kids so a lot has changed for
me in the last four years.” of a team
The transformation has been stark on the field too
– with team veteran and some-time captain Richard helps with the
now providing mentoring to new team members.
“A year ago I did a short video with World Rugby isolation of
and when I look back I can barely recognise myself
– I look so much healthier now,” he says.
homelessness”
“We don’t think about it as a homeless team, we
think about it as a bunch of mates having a laugh and Dave Rogers, Worcester Warriors community education
socialising – that’s all it is. programme director and the man behind the England team, says:
“Without Homeless Rugby I would probably still “One of the biggest problems with homelessness is being isolated and
be partying and taking drugs and drinking – I would stuck in one place. What our players say to us is the team aspect is so
probably be dead.” important – it gives them a great feeling to be part of a team and have
that camaraderie, especially when we go to away games. When they
The Homeless International Cup will take place at Sixways play other teams, they have food put on and things like that – they are
Stadium in Worcester on May 12. For more details head to treated just like any rugby club.”
homelessrugby.org @Lazergun_Nun

THE BIG ISSUE / p27 / May 7-13 2018

 £39
+ BO
.50

OK ING
OR IN FEE
FO &
TICK
MDE
NRO
ETS
CKSF
ESTIV
AL.C
OM
 THE ENLIGHTENMENT
Books Interview Film Music
Cleaning up after life page 30 Ellen Page page 32 The love of Godard page 33 ABBAcadabra! page 37
Image: Poster Workshop

VIVE LA RÉVOLUTION
Fifty years ago, the times they were-a-changing as the spirit of the Paris protests began to march over la Manche. Between
1968 and 1971 a basement in Camden was a focal point for counterculture, becoming a poster workshop allowing people to
respond to contemporary crises quickly and cheaply, from Vietnam to apartheid South Africa and workers’ rights closer to
home. Before social media, posters provided a platform for those without a voice to make their message heard. A new book
and exhibition at Tate Britain highlight the impact the Paris protests of May 1968 had on UK society.

Poster Workshop 1968-1971 (Four Corner Books, £10), London: 1968 runs at Tate Britain until October 31

THE BIG ISSUE / p29 / May 7-13 2018

 BOOKS
THE TRAUMA CLEANER

Ghost stories
Sandra Parkhurst runs a successful business dealing with the aftermath of traumatic events. But
biographer Sarah Krasnostein found Sandra’s own past is the one mess she can’t quite clean up

D
iane Arbus, my favourite OverthefouryearsIspentlearningabout One thing Sandra is not, however, is a
photographer,oncesaid:“Idon’t Sandra’s life and work, I saw wonders of the flawlesslyreliablenarrator.Manyfactsofher
press the shutter. The image dark world, as true of our collective human past are forgotten, conflicting or loosely
does. And it’s like being gently lifeasradiostationsandbirthdaycards:walls tethered to reality. She is in her sixties, not
clobbered.” Seeing Sandra Pankhurst – the that had turned soft from mould, food that old enough for that to be the reason why she
subject of my book, The Trauma Cleaner had liquefied,drinks that had solidified;flies is so bad with the basic sequence of her life.
– for the first time felt like being raised on human blood, the pink soap of the She is open about theimpact that drugs have
gently clobbered. had on her. It is also
I wasn’t looking for my belief that her
a story. I was wearing memor y loss is
my other hat – as a trauma-induced.
legal academic – and Butthereisanother
attendingaconference issue I became
on disabled criminal convinced of. Most
of fenders. The people Sandra’s age
crimina l justice can tell you in detail
system stakeholders about the excitements
also attending, such as and tragedies of being
the police, were ayoungadultoutinthe
potential clients for worldforthefirsttime.
Sandra’s trauma This isn’t necessarily
cleaning company, so because they did less
she had come to tout drugs or had kinder
her business. childhoods. It is
There she was because they’ve told
when we jumbled out their stories more
of the lecture room for often. Because they
morning tea. Tall and were surrounded by
perfectly manicured, friends, parents,
sittingbehindatacard Sandra Parkhurst and her team visit the dark places in life that most other people will never see partners,childrenwho
table arrayed with her were interested in seeing
brochuresandatinytelevisionplayingbefore recently deceased and 18-year-old chicken them as a whole person.
and after scenes of her proudest trauma bones lying like runes at the bottom of a pot. This is how true connection occurs, how
clean-ups. It was less that those images were I listened to Sandra’s news like it was the events become stories and stories become
profoundly disturbing, and more the middle of the Han dynasty and she had just memories and memories become narratives
juxtaposition of such darkness with this returnedwestfromtheSilkRoad,exceptthat of self and of family from which we
striking woman – tethered to her oxygen she was just telling me about her day—about derive identity and strength. By seeking to
tank–thatclobberedme.Ihadtoknowmore. waitingforthepsychteamtocollecttheman clear away the clutter of a lifetime out of
Like me on that day, most people will who killed his dog so that she could clean its respect for the inherent value of the person
probably be surprised to learn that neither blood of his floors; or about the man who beneath, I feel as though I had the privilege
the police nor other emergency services do died in the ceiling of his home while spying of doing for Sandra what she does for
trauma clean-up. This is why Sandra’s on his family. her clients.
trauma work is varied and includes crime IlearnedaboutthemanylivesthatSandra We cannot always eliminate what is bad
scenes, floods and fires. Additionally, had lived. Assigned male at birth, she had or broken or lost but we can do our best to
government housing, real estate agents, been adopted into an abusive home which put everything in its place, such order being
charities, and private individuals all call on sheleftearlytobecomeayounghusbandand the true opposite of trauma. This was one of
Sandra to deal with unattended deaths, father, then drag queen, sex worker, early the lessons I learned from writing
Photo Credit: David Caird_Newspix

suicides or cases of long-term property gender reassignment patient, funeral The Trauma Cleaner and I will be
neglect where homes have, in her words, director, trophy wife, stepmother, and eternally grateful for
“fallen into disrepute” due to the occupier’s businesswoman. I learned how the ghosts the experience.
mental illness, ageing or physical disability. of her past led her to be so remarkably
Grieving families also hire Sandra to help compassionate with the people she helped The Trauma Cleaner: One
themdisposeoftheirlovedones’belongings. through her work and, at the same time, woman’s extraordinary life
Her work, in short, is a catalogue of the ways haunted her relationships in the present. I in death, decay & disaster by
we die physically and emotionally, and learned that Sandra is at once exactly like Sarah Krasnostein is out now
the delicacy needed to lift the things we you or me or anyone we know and, at the (Text Publishing, £12.99)
leave behind. same time, utterly peerless. @delasarah

THE BIG ISSUE / p30 / May 7-13 2018

 READ MORE FROM...
DANI GARAVELLI REVIEWS
VISIT BIGISSUE.COM
THE INSOMNIA MUSEUM / THE LIVES OF THE SURREALISTS
Voyage of discovery
Dani Garavelli revels in two very different
versions of the strange mysteries of life and art
A
s a teenager Laurie Canciani
sufered a brief but crippling bout
of agoraphobia. Trapped inside a
council flat with her father, Anna,
the young heroine of her debut novel The
Insomnia Museum, suffers from its
pernicious cousin, claustrophobia, but the
efect is the much the same: it makes the
outside alien; it magnifies and distorts
whatever lies beyond her own front door.
Through long nights of wakefulness, she
listens to the noises: sirens, swearing,
raindrops against metal that proclaim the
limited nature of her own existence.
Anna has not been allowed to leave the
house since the day her mother tried to kill
her; she lives with her father in a strange,
shapeless world, stripped of the only things
that might give it structure: access to books
and the ability to mark the passage of time.
For unspecified reasons, her father refuses
to teach her to read and pretends there are 39
hours in a day; he swaps the cuckoo in their
clock for a Barbie-type doll to which he
attaches feathers. The mutant bird comes out
just once a day: “at the hour 15”.
The cuckoo clock is one of many pieces of
junkherfatherhaspickeduponhisnocturnal
forays through the estate; he spends most of
histimetryingtofixthingsthatarenotbroken
and the rest trying to fix himself with the kind
of junk that is heated up on a spoon.
Later, when he has gone so “deep into the
chase” he will never again be roused, Anna is
taken in by a stranger, Lucky, who is trying to
atone for past events. His son has his own
mission: to thwart his father’s do-gooding
which he achieves by selling drugs to those
Lucky has just handed wads of cash to. “This
is how I win,” he tells Anna and the merry-go-
round of misery keeps on turning.
The Insomnia Museum is an ambitious
exploration of loss, guilt and the way whole
livescanturnonasinglemistake.LikeEimear
McBride,Cancianiusesshort,staccato,cut-of
sentences to give the sense of mental
disintegration, while the oddity of some of the
museum detritus, like the plastic Jesus – who
nods along passively in the midst of all this
emotional havoc – seems to owe something
to Jenni Fagan’s The Panoptican.
The running white rabbits references, and
particularly the insistence on having to have
Jeferson Airplane’s White Rabbit playing in
the background at a key moment, is too con-
trived. More successful is the Wizard
of Oz analogy; like the characters in the only
TOP 5
BOOKS WHICH EXPOSE THE
VICTORIAN UNDERBELLY
MICHELLE MORGAN
THE RIPPER OF
WATERLOO ROAD
by Jan Bondeson
This book investigates
the unsolved murder of a
prostitute called Eliza Grimwood in
1838. Bondeson puts together a good
case for who the main suspect might be,
and there are lots of grisly illustrations
too!
JANE EYRE
Illustration: Dom McKenzie
by Charlotte Bronte
While not necessarily a crime
book, there are certainly dark
and creepy aspects to it. I
read this book as a child and now I love
collecting different editions and covers.
THE SUSPICIONS OF
movie Anna has ever watched (and never to MR WHICHER
the end), she finds herself in a surreal by Kate Summerscale
landscape of little people. She knows about This is like a real-life Agatha
disappointment; about pulling back the Christie novel. It investigates
curtain to reveal the emptiness at the heart the 1860 murder of a young child in a
of the Emerald City. The question is, will she country mansion. Characters include
ever be able to click her heels and find herself suspicious family members and creepy
at home? servants. Who doesn’t love a Victorian
I suppose the clue is in the title, but The country mansion yarn?
Lives of the Surrealists by painter and
zoologist Desmond Morris is not really for MR BRIGGS’ HAT
aficionados of art; its explanations of the by Kate Colquhoun
techniques employed are basic and the A gripping look at the
picturesareinblackandwhite.Butifyouhave strange story of Thomas
atasteforzanycharacters,outlandishconduct Briggs, who was murdered
and the partner-swapping of post-WW1 in a train carriage in 1864. The bizarre
mavericks who stuck their fingers up at the thing about the crime was that the body
establishment, then you will not experience disappeared from the train and the
a second’s boredom. From, “a work of living murder only discovered because of a
Dada”, who wore the top of a coal scuttle for a blood-soaked seat, a walking stick and
hat and dressed in a bra composed of tomato a leftover
cansandabirdcage,toWolfgangPaalen,whom top hat!
the author mock-solemnly introduces as “the
onlysurrealisttohavebeeneatenalivebywild THE MILE END
animals,” the book is a carnival of wackiness. MURDER
Asanexpertinanimalbehaviour,Morrismust by Sinclair McKay
have had a field day. There’s nowt so queer as Mary Emsley was almost
folk, as they say. like a real-life Scrooge: An
acerbic woman who spent her evenings
Words: Dani Garavelli @DaniGaravelli1 counting her money. Emsley came
to a sticky end in 1860, and this book
The Insomnia Museum examines who might have murdered
by Laurie Canciani is out now
her, and why.
(Head of Zeus, £14.99)
The Battered Body Beneath the
Flagstones & Other
The Lives of the Surrealists Victorian Scandals by
by Desmond Morris is out now Michelle Morgan is out now
(Thames and Hudson, £24.95) (Robinson, £18.99)
THE BIG ISSUE / p31 / May 7-13 2018
 I NTE EW
EW

“T
he Cured is the zombie movie that alive and well.” Quite
takesplaceafterthezombiemovie the understatement.
you’re used to seeing,” says Ellen A key difference to Page’s character Abbie
Page,theCanadianactresswhose most other zombie has a troubled past
breakthrough,Oscar-nominatedroleinJunoled movies is that the cured
to a diverse career over the last decade. remember their actions
Nextup,anIrish-baseddramasetafterthe as bloodthirsty demons, chomping through
country was rampaged by zombies. friendsandfamilymembers.Manyaredealing
“Essentially there’s a group of infected with signs of post-traumatic stress, and the
people that have been cured and they’re setting brings inevitable echoes of the issues
being introduced back to society – some are thatdivideIreland–fromborderstoreligion
welcoming and some people are not,” – and the legacy of the Troubles (not least
Page continues. because the condition that turned people
Ah, there’s nothing like a zombie film to into zombies is called the Maze virus).
provide a bit of biting social commentary. In a year where we’ve already had
And The Cured, written and directed Jackie Chan punching the IRA
by first-timer David Freyne, into submission in Netflix’s
has even richer allegorical The Foreigner, a legion of
value than most, with zombies taking on the
the resurrected undead Troubles seems the
standing for any number of naturalnextstep.But
contemporary concerns: theIrishconnection
immigrants, mental health wasonethatlargely
stigma, how society deals went over Page’s
with ex-convicts or those head. No country
leaving the services, even is immune to

To Ellen
homeless people – anyone divisive issues
who is seen as being less though, even
than human by wider Canada, with its
so ciet y; i ntoler a nt , fairytale PM
suspicious and frightened Justin Trudeau.

back
of the other. Freyne drew “Of course
on how the recession hit there’s issues in
Ireland and the rise of Canada that
populist politicians around divide people,”
the world encouraging Page says. “The
intolerance towards those tar sands in
who aren’t to blame. A lberta, the
“When [Freyne] was first Juno star Page’s new film is Keystone XL
starting to write it a lot of the set in Ireland, where reformed pipeline, a lot of
scenes were relating to the sort environmental
of uprising of nationalism and
zombies are finding life tough issues, racial
obviously throughout the years, issues, treatment
that has continued to be present. of indigenous
It’sdefinitelycontemporary,”Page people…
says. “Dealing with a zombie “Zombie and post-
outbreak/apocalypse apocalyptic films are a
would be difficult. way in which we question
The film tries ourselves,intermsofwhat
topresentthisareaof it means to survive, the
moral ambiguity and thingspeoplehavetodoand
ethical compromise the great fear of losing your
in terms of how The Cured is a zombie sense of what humanity is –
movie with a fresh twist
everybody’s dealing compassion and empathy.”
with the situation. It’s odd that it takes a zombie
Photo: Action Press/REX/Shutterstock

Ultimately the entire film to remind us what it means

situation that’s been created to be human.
perpetuates this cycle of fear
and violence. The Cured comes to
“The part of the script that cinemas from May
compelled me was the idea of 11, and Digital and
utilising fear to gain power,” DVD from May 14.
Page adds.
“It’s been a massive part Words: Steven MacKenzie
of human history, and it’s @stevenmackenzie

THE BIG ISSUE / p32 / May 7-13 2018

 FILM READ MORE FROM...

EDWARD LAWRENSON
VISIT BIGISSUE.COM

Sinking ship
Redoubtable plots the course of Jean-Luc Godard’s ill-fated marriage to
Anne Wiazemsky. But as for saluting the director’s brilliance, it’s all at sea

J
ean-Luc Godard is one of the most this handsome period film, but it’s a The film doesn’t really develop this,
significant figures in modern funny kind of tribute: Godard himself except to turn Godard’s creative turmoils
cinema. There’s little contest, in called the film “stupid” and I have a hard into a twitchy comedy of a mid-life crisis.
the view of this humble time disagreeing. Garrel is good as Godard, ably
correspondent. One of the founders of the The focus is on the relationship between mimicking the Swiss-accented lisp of the
French New Wave of the Sixties, he shook Godard (Louis Garrel) with Anne director, and playing his numerous
up cinema by liberating it from the stufy Wiazemsky, a beautiful 19-year-old actress neuroses and humiliations as if pratfalls
restrictions of studio filmmaking: made played by Stacy Martin, whom the then- from a Jerry Lewis comedy (one of the few
quickly, often on location, his early work 37-year-old director married in 1967. The sets of movies Godard would, in his ardour
is playful, sophisticated, funny, impeccably film itself is based on to destroy all corrupt
cool and almost impertinently inventive. Wiazemsky’s memoir of bourgeois art, save from
Towards the end of the decade, after a their relationship, from the revolutionary fires).
run of masterpieces – Breathless, Vivre sa its early heady promise to FINAL REEL Remove the film’s
vie, Le Mépris, Pierrot le fou among others painful breakdown a few The Cannes Film Festival element of gossipy
– with few equals in European cinema, his short years later. You begins this week, and it looks fascination that obsessives
movies became more avowedly political. might say that it’s a study hugely promising. Alongside like me have towards
Responding to the student protests of 1968, in Godard’s creeping work by veteran directors like Godard and Redoubtable
he made films of confrontational rigour; unfaithfulness. But it’s Spike Lee merges as a fairly
as innovative as ever, but without the not for another lover that and – yes – lodding depiction
appeal of his early work. An emergence he neglects Anne, rather Godard, the f the slow death of
from this chilly artistic exile came in a the radical politics selectors have he relationship
much celebrated ‘return’ to narrative in the exploding on the streets focussed on etween a self-
early Eighties, but you’re unlikely to find of Paris in 1968. a younger, sorbed filmmaker
the latest Godard in your multiplex. Dismissing his own lesser-known nd his beautiful
His recent films are in turn poetic, brand of filmmaking and more inter tress wife. That
brilliant, ruminative, marked by depths of a s “ bourgeois”, he diverse range of filmmakers. story has been told much
oceanic pessimism and very confounding. falls under the spell of It’s the freshest, most surprising better before, not least
His new work is called Le Livre d’image and the student protest line-up in ages. by Godard in 1963’s
based on its trailer, expect more of the movement, pledging to Le Mépris.
same. It’s in Cannes competition later this reinvent his approach The title by the way is
month, and is likely to be the freshest to cinema in line with the anti- taken from the teasing reference Jean-Luc
provocation in the line-up: Monsieur establishment fervour of the time. The and Anne make to a submarine in the
Godard, by the way, is in his late eighties. revolutionary impulse was, the film early days of their marriage. Voyager
Redoubtable is a splashy French biopic suggests, as much artistic as political beware: as a vessel for understanding
(by Michel Hazanavicius, the director of for Godard. Approaching his forties why Jean-Luc Godard matters, Redoubtable
Oscar-winning silent film pastiche The Godard was growing bored, and ever doesn’t go deep.
Artist) that chronicles a key phase in the restless innovator found the Redoubtable is in cinemas from May 11
Godard’s life. I guess it testifies to Godard’s opportunity for a cinematic rebirth in
cultural standing that he’s the subject of radical ideas of Paris’ youth. Edward Lawrenson @EdwardLawrenson

THE BIG ISSUE / p33 / May 7-13 2018

random / generations
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 TV READ MORE FROM...

LUCY SWEET
VISIT BIGISSUE.COM

OUT AND ABOUT

Totally digging
NOSTALGIC WAVE
this at last
Maybe it’s an age thing to find Gardener’s World so absorbing
Oh who doesn’t like to be beside the seaside?
A new exhibition, A Welsh Connection
(May 12-31, Contemporary Six, Manchester,

A
contemporarysix.co.uk), collects landscapes of lthoughthevarifocalsandthewalk-in modest patch of green space, I’ve realised
north Wales by the artist Anne Aspinall, where bath aren’t quite necessary yet, I’ve that there’s something quietly impressive
many in the north-west of England have started to find great comfort in about gardening. It is the very definition of
much-loved memories of childhood holidays. Gardener’s World. My parents used to the long game. You’re in charge, but you’re
watch it when I was an interminably bored not really. You can coax, you can tinker, you
Meanwhile, it’s a tale of yesterday and teen, and I would dramatically yawn my way can amble all you like. You can even
tomorrow in London this week. First up, The throughitwaitingforBlackaddertocomeon, rig up elaborate hydroponic planting areas
Return Of The Past: Postmodernism In watching Alan Titchmarsh gently andcreateyourownsustainablefoodsource.
British Architecture (May 16 to August 27, blithering his way around his herbaceous But in the end, nature will always win, and
Holborn, London; soane.org) looks at the border before he was joined on the spin-of your box hedges will grow out like wildly
seismic impact of postmodernism on building Ground Force by unkempt merkins
design, where architects started ripping up Charlie Dimmock’s and you will be
the past and began to create a knowing new dimmocks swaying buriedandreturnto
future. Zooming in on key names like Terry in the wind while dust under that tree
Farrell, Piers Gough and Jeremy Dixon, their she dug a trench. you once planted,
influence will be explained through drawings, I hated both which is now 10ft
models, full-scale replicas and fragments from shows with a tall with a trunk-
actual buildings they designed. passion. God, they like Tommy Lee
were the very Jones’ face. Ha!
Sending time’s arrow in the opposite direction, definition of dull. Touché, humans!
The Future Starts Here (from May 12, South Plant your holly- This should be a
Kensington, London; vam.ac.uk) collects hocks 5cm deep, disturbing thought,
over 100 objects that will write and direct the get rid of bindweed, but it’s not. The
future – including ‘my clematis only March of Time
autonomous boats flowers every two ( plant between
that clean up oil years, HELP!’, to AprilandMayinfull
spills, a crowdfunded mulch or not to sun) takes a lot of
bridge, the world’s mulch? Then a lot of responsibility away
first carbon-neutral/ raking. So much from you, allowing
zero-waste city, raking.Andambling for you to just be.
artificial intelligence and DNA-powered art. slowly down paths, And when Monty
as if time was Don says the words:
Meanwhile, London Nights (May 11 infinitely expend- “ With gardens
to November 11, Barbican, London; able.Nottomention you’ve got to take
museumoflondon.org.uk) is a photography all those Latin yourtimeandwait,”
exhibition exploring the capital after the sun names of plants, I’m flooded with the
goes down – jumping across portraiture, followed by the Monty Don: When it comes to your flowers and hedges, kind of calm you
documentary, conceptual photography and variety, which, as the Gardener’s World host is the soothing voice of reason wou ld pay a
film. See the city in a whole new way. with pedigree dogs premium for on the
on Crufts, is always something mind- Headspace app. He also has a really cool bulb
If you are looking for inspiration to start bogglingly random and stupid, like ‘Nature’s planter thing like an enormous apple corer,
creating – or simply want to liven up corners Fairy Christmas’ or ‘Trumpets of Morning’. which I googled, then seriously considered
of your house – London Craft Week But times have changed and now I’m buying – only £25.99! Maybe this is what
2018 (May 9-13, various locations, London; shocked to find I’m quite into it. Monty Don happens when you get older. Maybe I’m
londoncraftweek.com) could be the place for and his dog used to drive me to furious growing? Will I like Eamonn Holmes soon?
you. Now in its fourth year, it peppers objects despair as he pottered about and droned on. Oh God, maybe I should phone Dignitas
around famous buildings and lesser-known Now,hisvoiceiseternallysoothing.Heislike after all…
spots in the capital, making it like a treasure a calm pond, a stick in a river, a resting toad
hunt. There are also talks, workshops and on a lilypad. I bet they use his voice when Gardener’s World airs on BBC2 on
studio tours. you’re put on hold at Dignitas. Fridays at 8pm
And now I’ve put my days of partying
Eamonn Forde @Eamonn_Forde behind me and actually have my own Words: Lucy Sweet @lucytweet1

THE BIG ISSUE / p35 / May 7-13 2018

Help create
positive
futures
We help Big Issue vendors turn
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Super regrouper
ABBA have put the divorces behind them and returned to the studio –
and it was all down to The Big Issue. Time to thank us for the music
N
ow the dust has settled on the epic
news that ABBA have reformed,
consider this: it was The Big Issue
wot done it. Benny Andersson was
interviewed in the magazine just last year.
Agnetha Fältskog spoke to us for a cover
feature back in 2013. Björn Ulvaeus I
briefly met on a cross-country ski track in
Sweden in 2006 – he was wearing silver
boots and grudgingly mumbled “hej” when
he noticed that I was staring at him. It’s my
most-told celebrity anecdote of all time.
Admittedly we never got Anni-Frid, but
then she was always a bit evasive.
It’smyfirm,oratleastfirm-ish,beliefthat
thevalidation,encouragementandall-round
good vibes that three quarters of ABBA
experienced in each of those encounters is
what helped to convince them that, yes, it is
timetoput500millionrecordsales,35years
of not speaking to one another all that much
and two divorces behind them and get back
in the studio together (two new songs, one of
them titled I Still Have Faith In You, will
feature in a TV special produced by NBC and
the BBC aimed for broadcast in December).
That and – okay yes, fine, granted – the
clamoring demands of pretty much anyone
Photo: Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo
anywhere on God’s Green Earth with
functioning ears that either wasn’t alive in
the 1970s, can’t remember the 1970s, or has
made their peace with the 1970s.
With burnish of hindsight, music history
categorically records that ABBA are and
almost certainly always will be remembered
as the greatest pure pop band that ever was.
There’s no contest, really. But before anyone
who was actually around in the era of the
superSwedes’dominanceaccusesmeofgross
revisionism – admittedly I was only five
MUSIC
months old when ABBA’s last single
Under Attack came out in December
1982 – let me acknowledge that it wasn’t
always so. A lot of people hated ABBA, and
some probably still do.
It seems hard to imagine now, but ABBA
went out with a whimper, their final album
The Visitors barely scraping a million sales.
“Not even the
ignominy of
being Alan
Partridge’s
favourite band
caused their
surrender”
After almost a decade on top, they were
physically and emotionally knackered. A
cursory analysis of their UK chart record
reveals an even simpler truth – people just
got fed up with them. Of the roughly 460
weeks that expired between ABBA releasing
Waterloo as a single of the back of their
EurovisionSongContest-winningarrivalon
the world stage in 1974, and Under Attack
limping in at number 26, they spent almost
half of that time – 211 weeks – with at least
one single in the UK top 40, and 114 weeks
with at least one single in the UK top 10.
Those numbers are staggering. But thrown
into sharp relief by the youthful freshness
THE BIG ISSUE / p37 / May 7-13 2018
READ MORE FROM...
MALCOLM JACK
VISIT BIGISSUE.COM
and exuberance of the New Romantics, by
the early 1980s the Swedes had become a
shorthandforallthatwasparentalandpast-it
in pop. ABBA’s days of fashionability were
chucked out with the platform shoe.
But their rehabilitation in the minds of
theirowngeneration,andtheirembracement
bymillennials,hasbeencomprehensive,and
little wonder. Agnetha and Anni-Frid’s
supernaturally sympathetic voices, the
only-too-real romantic drama in the lyrics,
the hooks arranged row upon row upon row
likeshark’steeth.Quiteapartfromanything
else,ABBAsoundedjustmassive.Andersson
and Ulvaeus and their engineer Michael B
Tretowwerestudiomulti-trackinggeniuses,
whose massed armies of voices, guitars,
drums, pianos and synthesisers were apt to
make heavy metal bands sound like boy
scouts by comparison. The Winner Takes it
All, SOS and Does Your Mother Know to
name just three are fortresses of such
impregnable pop brilliance that not even the
ignominy of being Alan Partridge’s favourite
band – both his short-lived BBC chat show
Knowing Me, Knowing You and his son
FernandoarenamedafterABBAsongs–has
brought about their surrender.
All this from two minor pop singers and
two middling schlager musicians who
hitherto couldn’t have got arrested outside
oftheirnativecountry,andwhosebandname
isapunonapopularbrandofSwedishpickled
herring. What a story, eh? If anyone ever
makes an ABBA musical it’ll probably be the
most successful musical of all time. You
heard that idea here first too.
Malcolm Jack @MBJack
 ADVERTISING CLASSIFIEDS
To advertise: Jenny Bryan 020 3890 3744 / jennifer_Bryan@dennis.co.uk

A site near to Bristol Central Quaker Meeting

looks likely to be available if we have the
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Invest now to make this possible.

Interest as before.

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THE BIG ISSUE / p38 / May 7-13 2018

 ADVERTISING CLASSIFIEDS
To advertise: Jenny Bryan 020 3890 3744 / jennifer_Bryan@dennis.co.uk

Mental illness and brain disorders will aīect everyone’s

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Donate on line at www.justgiving.com/psychiatryresearchtrust

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THE BIG ISSUE / p39 / May 7-13 2018

 ADVERTISING CLASSIFIEDS
To advertise: Jenny Bryan 020 3890 3744 / jennifer_Bryan@dennis.co.uk

THE BIG ISSUE / p40 / May 7-13 2018

 ADVERTISING CLASSIFIEDS
To advertise: Jenny Bryan 020 3890 3744 / jennifer_Bryan@dennis.co.uk

FLOR’S STORY

This poor cat was found at the
side of the road having been run
over and left for dead. She had a
broken jaw, damaged eye and a
hernia – she would have died in
great pain if it had not been for
a young lady who contacted C4C
and took her to a vet. She had a
very complex operation to save
her life – she has been named
“Flor”.
Please help us to keep on doing
this work! We also trap and neuter
feral, abandoned and stray cats
from the streets – there are volun-
teers from the UK and also local
volunteers working 7 days a week
to ensure the good health and
wellbeing of the cats of the island.
Please help us to save lives:

Please donate through our website: Send a cheque to:

www.care4catsibiza.org Care4Cats, Brimar House,
Through our justgive page: East Street, West Chiltington,
https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/niki-halls1 Sussex RH20 2JY
Please support us and see our work on:
ibiza.care4cats

The Socialist Party

aims at building a moneyless world community based
on common ownership and democratic control with production solely
for use not profit. It opposes all leadership, all war.
for 3 FREE issues of our monthly Socialist Standard write to:
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www.worldsocialism.org.bi

Are your prayers for a soulmate

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Let ‘Friends1st’ change that for
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THE BIG ISSUE / p41 / May 7-13 2018

 ADVERTISING CLASSIFIEDS
To advertise: Jenny Bryan 020 3890 3744 / jennifer_Bryan@dennis.co.uk

SA OK
APRIL SHOWRS

BO
Please help

VE N
£1 OW
70
Can you spot misteaks? Proofreaders and editors work from home
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Ruth, please call Missing People on 116 000 or

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support whenever you feel ready.

Giannelli Kandandji - Camden, London

Giannelli went missing from Camden on 17 April
2018. He was 23 at the time of his disappearance.

Giannelli is urged to call Missing People on 116 000

or email 116000@missingpeople.org.uk for advice
and support, including the opportunity to send a
message home in confidence.

Barry Coughlan - Crosshaven, Co Cork, Eire

Barry went missing from Crosshaven 14 years ago
on the 1 May 2004 . He was 23 at the time of his
disappearance.
Barry, we are here for you when you are ready;
we can listen, talk you through what help you need,
pass a message on for you and help you to be safe.
Please call or text 116 000.

David Findlay - Cardonald, Glasgow

David has been missing from Cardonald since 05 May
2008, ten years ago. He was 69 at the time of his
disappearance.
David, please call or text Missing People on
116 000 when you’re ready; we can listen, talk
through what help you need, pass a message on for
you and help you to be safe.

Georgina Gharsallah - Worthing, Sussex

Georgina went missing from Worthing on 7 March
2018. She was 30 years of age at the time
of her disappearance.

Georgina, please call Missing People on 116 000 or

email 116000@missingpeople.org.uk for advice and
support whenever you feel ready.

Michelle Morris - Deptford, London

Michelle was last seen in Deptford, London
on 7 April 2018. Michelle is 31 years of age.

Michelle, we can listen, talk you through what help

you need, pass a message for you and help you to be
safe. Please call Missing People on 116 000 or email
116000@missingpeople.org.uk.

Call or text 116 000

Email 116000@missingpeople.org.uk
It’s free, 24hr and confidential
Missing People would like to thank
The Big Issue for publicising
vulnerable missing people on
this page.
Our free 116 000 number is
Registered charity in England and Wales (1020419)
supported by players of People’s and in Scotland (SC047419)

Postcode Lottery.

www.missingpeople.org.uk/help-us-find
THE BIG ISSUE / p42 / May 7-13 2018
 ADVERTISING CLASSIFIEDS
To advertise: Jenny Bryan 020 3890 3744 / jennifer_Bryan@dennis.co.uk

THE BIG ISSUE / p43 / May 7-13 2018

 COMP I ON
FOUNDERS
John Bird and Gordon Roddick
Group chair
Nigel Kershaw

Managing director
Russell Blackman

EDITORIAL & PRODUCTION

Editor Paul McNamee
Managing editor Vicky Carroll
Features editor Steven MacKenzie
Digital editor Ben Sullivan
Books editor Jane Graham
News & entertainment Adrian Lobb
Film Edward Lawrenson
Radio Robin Ince
Music Malcolm Jack and Claire Jackson
Business support manager Robert White
Art director Ross Lesley-Bayne

WIN!
Production editor Sarah Reid
Designer Gillian Smith
Junior designer Matthew Costello
Junior sub editor/writers Dionne Kennedy
& Liam Geraghty

ADVERTISING 020 3890 3899

Dennis Publishing, 31-32 Alfred Pl,
Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7DP
Group advertising director Andrea Mason
Group advertising manager Helen Ruane
OVER £400 OF
Account manager Brad Beaver
Classified and recruitment: 020 3890 3744
Account director Jenny Bryan
TS TO FAIRPORT’S
Senior sales executive Imogen Williams

Vendor Comments
vendorcomments@bigissue.com
The Big Issue Group
020 7526 3200
113-115 Fonthill Road, Finsbury Park,
London, N4 3HH
Group managing director John Montague
Group finance director Clive Ellis
Group marketing & communications
director Lara McCullagh
Group HR director Elizabeth Divver
Distribution director Peter Bird
Big Issue Invest managing director
Ed Siegel
Big Issue Invest head of lending
Daniel Wilson-Dodd
editorial@bigissue.com
0141 352 7260
@bigissue
2nd floor, 43 Bath Street,
Glasgow, G2 1HW
Distribution/London 020 7526 3200
Printed at William Gibbons
BSME Cover of the Year 2017, PPA Cover of the Year
2015, PPA Scotland Cover of the Year 2015 & 2017
PPA Scotland
Consumer Magazine of The Year, 2017
Paul McNamee
British editor of the year 2016, BSME
CROPREDY CONVENTION!
The world-famous festival in Cropredy grew out of the village’s
fete. Folk-rock band Fairport Convention played at fundraisers for
the village during the 1970s in the gardens of Prescott Manor, the
home of former Labour government minister Dick Crossman.
By 1977 the band was putting on its own show on farm land
– marking its introduction as a ‘proper’ festival. Now, more than
40 years later the festival returns to Cropredy, five miles north
of Banbury in Oxfordshire, on August 9-11 with a stellar line-up
including Fairport Convention themselves, Kate Rusby, Levellers,
Afro-Celt Sound System, BBC Young Folk Award Winner Mera
Royle, Richard Digance (right) and Beach Boys frontman Brian
Wilson presenting Pet Sounds.
For full festival details see fairportconvention.com.
We’ve teamed up with Fairport’s Cropredy Convention to
offer two fantastic prizes:
Our first winner will bag a family pack of tickets including two
adult three-day tickets worth £135 each, with a weekend camping
pass worth £45 and up to three under 12 child tickets. And the
runner-up will win a pair of adult Saturday-only day tickets, worth
£75 each.
To be in with a chance of winning simply answer the
question below:
In the gardens of which manor did Fairport Convention first
play fundraisers for their local village fete?
Send your answers with CROPREDY as the subject to
competitions@bigissue.com or post to The Big Issue, 43 Bath Street,
Glasgow, G2 1HW. Include your name and address. Closing date
is May 22. Include OPT OUT if you don’t want to receive updates
from The Big Issue. We will not pass your details to any third party.
For full T&Cs see bigissue.com

THE BIG ISSUE / p44 / May 7-13 2018

 GAMES & PUZZLES
SUDOKU SPOT THE BALL


   A

 
B
  
   C
 
 D

   
E
  

Photos: Action Images

There is just one simple rule ISSUE 1305 SOLUTION F
in sudoku: each row, column         
        
and 3 x 3 box must contain          1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
the numbers one to nine.         
        
This is a logic puzzle and you         
To win Running Up That Hill by Vassos
(Last week’s
should not need to guess.          Alexander mark where you think the ball is, Spot the Ball
The solution will be revealed          cut out and send to: revealed:
        
next week. Spot the Ball (1306), 43 Bath St, Glasgow, Chelsea
G2 1HW, by May 15. Include name, v Bolton
(1978)
address, phone no. Enter by email: send grid
position (eg A1) to competitions@bigissue.com.

PRIZE CROSSWORD
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 CRYPTIC CLUES QUICK CLUES
Across Down Across
7 8 1. Redhead’s biscuit (6,3) 2. Profit from curiosity 1. Greek philosopher (9)
8. Doctor the tailless (8) 8. Donkey’s cry (4)
9 10 larva (4) 3. Lead sulphide from a 9. --------- zone (9)
9. One could be in the man in Georgia (6) 11. Japanese military
running in this sport 4. Rescue dog – but it’s governor (6)
11 (9) lost its tail (8) 12. Fastening (6)
11. Some boys terrified 5. It is strange in 13. Diabolical (8)
12 the marine creature Scotland to find a 16. Decided (8)
(6) French company (4) 20. Dell (6)
12. Be about to race with 6. Mail order worker (6) 21. Religious faith (6)
13 13 14 15 one from an eastern 7. Anchor removed by 23. Steady application (9)
country (6) ferryman (6) 24. Spellbound (4)
14 16 13. Elementary particle 10. Occurring together 25. Importing illegally (9)
Ronald had to choose in the Seychelles and
first (8) North Carolina (4) Down
16 17 18 19 16. Then seal might 14. Inspector was a collier 2. Stayed (8)
appear on a volcanic (8) 3. Indian region (6)
20 island (2,6) 15. Be arrogant about 4. Accommodating (8)
20. Silver in the lake is of the animal (beaver or 5. Deprivation (4)
21 22 21 poor quality (6) otherwise) (8) 6. Spanish region (6)
21. Either way it is more 16. Try to remove rivets 7. Church songbook (6)
to the left (6) (6) 10. Item of footwear (4)
23 23. Type of 17. Was shifty when 14. Swindling (8)
accommodation that surrounded (6) 15. Relating to the
24 was supplied (9) 18. Willie flogged some Church of England (8)
24. Entered into rivalry by willingly (4) 16. Reddish-brown (6)
performing dive (4) 19. Beasts troubling the 17. Old car (6)
24 25 25. A motorist should hound (6) 18. Act (4)
carry this, but it’s not 22. Strange, soft steak (4) 19. Ill (6)
healthy (5,4) 22. Movie (4)
To win a Chambers Dictionary, send completed crosswords (either cryptic or quick) to:
The Big Issue Crossword (1306), second floor, 43 Bath Street, Glasgow, G2 1HW by
May 15. Include your name, address and phone number.
Issue 1304 winner is Caroline Latham from Romford IN ASSOCIATION WITH
Issue 1305 solution
CRYPTIC: Across – 1 All very well; 9 Defer; 10 Trips up; 11 Isms; 12 Domestic; 14 Tannic; 15 Eifel; 18 Catching; 20 Poop; 22 Earache; 23 Haiti; 24 An apple a day.
Down – 2 Lift-man; 3 Verb; 4 Ration; 5 White lie; 6 Liszt; 7 Adriatic Sea; 8 Apocalyptic; 13 Nightcap; 16 Florida; 17 Unveil; 19 Turin; 21 Whoa.
QUICK: Across – 1 Thoughtless; 9 Oiled; 10 Pintado; 11 Cube; 12 Inducted; 14 Bitchy; 15 Tsetse; 18 Abducted; 20 Onus; 22 Eye-spot; 23 Brown; 24 Treasonable.
Down – 2 Halibut; 3 Urdu; 4 Hoping; 5 Linguist; 6 Shaft; 7 Torchbearer; 8 Top dressing; 13 Chickpea; 16 Tinfoil; 17 Dextro; 19 Drear; 21 ABBA.

THE BIG ISSUE / p45 / May 7-13 2018


“I’m one of Britain’s oldest vendors
but I still play five-a-sides every week”
ABOUT ME...
SHELF LIFE
I’m in the library every afternoon
for a few hours. I’ve always
loved reading and I’m often
found reading military books or
even renting out the films and
documentaries when I can.
BEST FOOT FORWARD
Walking around town is one of
my favourite things to do, I’m
at it all day. I particularly enjoy
going around University Park
and Christ Church Meadow.
They are really nice places to be.
ON MY
PITCH…
I’m outside Tesco in
Botley, Oxford every
day from 10am
until 2pm.
MY PITCH
Lionel Hegarty, 74
OUTSIDE TESCO, BOTLEY, OXFORD
I
’ve been selling the
magazine for about nine
years to the point where
I am now one of the country’s
oldest vendors at the age of 74.
I heard about The Big Issue
while I was rough sleeping for
four years. I love working on
my pitch because I like talking
to the public and sales have
been going well recently. I have
plenty of regulars who are all
really nice to me and give me
food and drink while I’m out
on my pitch. Some days you
can make a few bob and some
days you have to grin and bear
it because you make nothing.
But I’m really, really happy
that I’m involved with The Big
Issue, the staf in the office
are really nice to me and very
helpful. They can’t do enough
for me.
I’ve worked all my life and
I’ve done a bit of everything.
I was a qualified painter and
THE BIG ISSUE / p46 / May 7-13 2018
decorator in Plymouth, and I
worked in a hotel washing pots
in Brighton. I’ve also worked
in a fish and chip shop and I’ve
just started volunteering in
an Oxfam shop – I’ve done all
sorts. Even now I have a paper
round that I do before I head
to my pitch. I’m up at 6am
every day and I don’t get back
home until about 8pm. It’s
tiring but I love walking
about Oxford.
I’m living in a hostel but
I’m hoping to get moved on
soon into something more
permanent. I’ve had a few
tough times – I lost two
brothers in the space of a
month a couple of years ago.
That was a really difficult thing
to get over for me.
I now try to help people
as much as I can, especially
homeless people because I
have been in their situation.
I’ve done The Big Issue’s Big
Night Walk for the last four
years – it’s always great to
meet other vendors and I
find it to be a really good
night out.
I’m also training for a
sponsored 4K run around
Oxford for Cancer Research
and I still play five-a-side
football every week! I used
to play for Oxford Boys and a
local team in my younger days
and I still enjoy playing
in goal now. In fact, I played
in a tournament when I was
67 and managed to be named
player of the tournament
and got a medal for it! I’m
also trying tennis for the
second time in my life when
I play against my social
worker soon. She’ll probably
beat me but I’ll give it a go.
I’m a busy man!
Interview: Liam Geraghty
Photo: Maciek Tomiczek
 13 JULY – 8 SEPTEMBER 2018 • ROYAL ALBERT HALL
The world’s greatest classical music festival

90 EVENTS OVER 58 DAYS, INCLUDING

SIR SIMON RATTLE • ANNA MEREDITH • WEST SIDE STORY
JOYCE DiDONATO • NICOLA BENEDETTI • YOUSSOU NDOUR
THE UNTHANKS • MILOŠ KARADAGLIĆ • JACOB COLLIER
THE PLANETS • THE BRANDENBURG PROJECT

Booking opens Saturday 12 May

bbc.co.uk/proms
@bbcproms bbc_proms theproms