My Big Xmas Wishes To All My Big Issue Friends. By Uncle Monty.

My Big Xmas Wishes To All Of My

Big Issue Friends And Customers:

Both Past and Present.
By Uncle Monty.

Photos By Alex Albion.
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I wouldn’t be at all surprise if I’ve missed some
names here that should be included among my

Big Xmas Wishes to them. If I have, please let
me know so that I can happily add your name.
So let me start to list such people purely from

memory perhaps some 60 to 70 names that come

immediately to my mind. There should be around

85 or 90 names, I am sure. But for now, I’ll list

the following good folkz to say thank you to and

along with sending my 2oo8 Big Christmas

Wishes to each and everyone of them:

-
- Nora Rodrígues – Carol Cable – George Pennock –

- Jonathan Stolerman - Graham Simkin – Isabelle Wojcik –

- Shelia Aarons – Jill Ferguson - Sion Turner –

- Tony Lewis – Peter Roberts, Ph. D. – Colin Campbell -

- Stephan Schultes, Ph.D. – Nicholas Jeffries – Nick Alfrey –

- Laurie Edmans, CBE. - Joseph D. Smallman – Fiona Sloss –

- Annabel Hartley – Eric Chemphill – Sham Jagpal –

- O. Zack Oppenheimer – Carl and Myrna Hancocks –
- Cameron Smith – James Bradbury – Michele Zini –

- Bronwyn Curry - Franco Bennini – John Stroughair –

- Alex Cox – Lady “M” - Zakia Sharif – Paul D. Cackett –

- James A. Higgins – Andy Rogers - Joan Barker -

- Paul Martin-Davis – Grant Tannenbaum – Richard Offer -
- Sophie McElligott – Jamie Gunning – Jean McCarthy –
- Preveen and Sagoonia Mandalia – Jenny Webster –
- Richard Henwood – Agnes Bonnet – Sharon Till –
- Aoife Kilkenny, M.Sc. – Nigel Millinson – Tony Haimi –
- Michael Barrisford – Heidi Johnson – Christine Baker -
- Ruch Pathirana – Jeannine McQuillian - Mozagan Saninia –

- Jan Mol – Gareth Dawson – Jon and Linda Annetts –

- Alex Prior – Shirley Ginesi - Professor Brian Dunnigan –

- Juliet and Megan Strachan – Jan Allen – Seth York -

- Marion Josop, M.D. - Gary Wren - Jack Irvine -

- Russ Robertson - Clive Pickering - Maggie Walters -

- William David Brohn - Taylor Ford, III - Nancy Debs -
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Big Santa At London's Drury Lane.

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This year of 2oo8 has been a seismic change of

my Big Issue customer base at where perhaps 40

percent have either left to go to work elsewhere or

have moved out of town or even headed abroad.

I have had to try to replenish my customer base
over the past 12 months to replace those I have

so sorely lost at almost one continuous go.

What was worse is that the majority of those 40
percent who have now gone were for the most part

my most generous cusomers turned close friends.

Furthermore, most of them were my earliest

supporters when I first hit Long Acre as a new

Big Issue vendor going on now at almost 4

years. It isn’t the same at my pitch without

those old familiar supporters and friends of

mine. To endured their loss has been no fun at

all. What I also discovered about being a vendor

is that things are always in a constant flux with

folkz and circumstances always coming and going

at my pitch. Things aren’t negatively stagnant

nor positively stable since each day is liable to
bring about good, bad or indifferent changes.
Slowly but surely, I see a new customer base

emerging over the old one. New faces and

new personalities add flavour and character

to the mix at my Big Issue pitch. I thrive not

so much on change, but rather on wanting

to always establish new friends both on

and off my Long Acre "domain."
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British Big Issue Vendor Simon Hart, 44.
He’s originally from Aldershot at where his late

dad served The British Military for 22 years.

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Looking at this year’s dire Christmas economic situation

for many of Britain's Big Issue vendors can be summed

up in two unhappy words – “BLOODY AWFUL.” With

less than a week to go before Christmas, it’s looking

more like everything BUT –Christmas.

I fear for those vendors who have not established a
customer base or simply show their pretty face a few
weeks before Christmas in the mistaken belief they’re
“entitled” to some Christmas cheer from those walking past
them on the winter streets as they hawk their street paper

to the masses of cold people that don’t care a hoot for the

most part whether you’re homeless or not. To be poor

sends the non-poor folkz ducking for cover to avoid those

who might want some of their “bread,” as the countercul-

ture Hippies would say. So the prime concern of most folkz

today is focussed on how they’ll get thru this Christmas

themselves without having to give an extra dime to

anybody else like those Big Issue street vendors.
Otherwise, "to hell with everybody else …," they

must mutter to themselves. That's the reality I

see from my pitch ... Maybe its me, not them?
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The Freemasons’ Arms at London’s Long Acre.

:: That Nice Sunday Roast ::
To be invited to a traditional Sunday roast was

right up street (or alley) and on the same street

at where I park my Big Issue pitch, regularly.
It was my friends The Annetts who kindly invited

me to their first-class Freemasons’ Arms for last

Sunday’s truly good English Roast with traditional

Yorkshire pud, plenty of nicely-cooked beef and thick

gravy and good roasted spuds, etc., etc. I gladly
stuffed such, of course, into my ever growing belly

with all the Xmas glee I could muster. With their

tasteful Christmas decorations surrounding me
with such a traditional glow that it made me feel so

welcome like I was at home-sweet-home. There, too,

did the young Aussie lad Ryan Tucker and Essex’s

super Andy serve me so happily with my Sunday

roast that I wanted to thank them publicly so much

for their kindness to me along with my thankz also

to Linda, Jon, and Rob for all of their moral sup-

port they've given to me during much of my time

at London’s Long Acre. Good food is far better
given than simply cold cash, I believe. And,

even more so is good food most welcome

against the dire economic times on the streets.

Having friends like those at The Freemasons'

Arms far outweighs whatever the dulldrums

are of an otherwise downturned Christmas

for many so stuck on the streets or in hostile

hostels. So that's what good friends are

for to be there for you. That's makes me

the most happiest of all.
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Love At First Sight? You Bet. It's

Stefarno and Gulliana again of Italy.
They’re mates of mine, you see.

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:: Then There’s Oli Brown ::
A pretty young man by his age I’d say of perhaps
in his mid-20’s at most. Before he became a Big
Issue Outreach worker, he worked in advertising
at its Vauxhall HQ on Wandsworth Road. His
name is Oli Brown and a friendly fellow was he.
He stopped by at my Long Acre pitch the other
day to basically introduce himself as he showed
me his white wallet-size photo ID. We chatted
together for awhile and Oli then informed me
that his big boss, Big Issue co-founder John Bird,
had moved to Cambridge and presumably out of
London. As far as I know, John was last living with-
in the Putney postcode. I wondered if by moving
to Cambridge, John is aiming at semi-retirement
aside from perhaps moving there to nurture his
young son and to be closer to family members
of his. Whatever, Oli said he found working on
the streets more of a challenge than simply
working in the ad department. But for him to
be dealing with street vendors will require a
few hard lessons for Oli to understand home-
lessness and the physical and mental conditions
of some of them. Many will be alot older than
him. In fact, by his age alone Oli is young enough
to be my grandson. I just hope he doesn’t be-
come cold and cynical like I have seen among
some other Big Issue staffers in the past almost
four years as a Big Issue street vendor myself.
Cynicism is like a deadly cancer. It destroys
meaningful interactions and relationships like
nothing else. It's hard to cure, too. Cynicism
engenders disrespect to others from those
who deserve no respect themselves from
such others.
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Oli Brown has a kind of childlike innocence
and buoyancy that is so very refreshing to
see. I pray he will stay that way. Compassion
once lost is not easily regained. I see it every
day as I watch thousands upon thousands go
by my Big Issue pitch each day and offer not
even a kind word let alone a lousey dime.
So many are only full of themselves. And,
have not been taught to give or to consider
others. Their sole consideration is always
for themselves first and be damned to
all the rest. Cold and frigid they then walk
on the streets of London and never see a
thing outside their own self-centredness
and cooky conceit. The more people we
have, the less most of them care about
others. It’s what David Riseman called

“The Lonely Crowd.” I’d add to his – “The
Me Crowd,” Too. They’re a bloody aw-
ful people with so many millions of
them around thesedays.
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I come, I know, from a different time and
place that was once lovely England than do
most folkz I see today. But I am glad I do.
I wouldn’t want to be them for they are so
personally detestable to me. I want to live
in my world as far away as I can from their’s.
That’s why I very rarely watch TV and listen
only to classical music with my CD’s. I have
long ago refused to listen to the plastic voices
and fart-prone people of radio, too. To hell
with them, I say ... They can all stuff them-

selves like I wish that hideous bloke called

Jonathan Ross would do ... It would do us all

a favour to see him jump in the wet lake ...

or better still to have his big head ducked

in a big bucket of cold water with a big

dollop of carbolic soap jammed in his filthy

big mouth to clean it out big time ...

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As for Christmas, it is what you make it no
matter what other folkz say and no matter
how much money you have or have not in
the bank. We've de-Christianized and secul-
ised the celebration of our once traditional
English Christmases to accommodate all
thingz commercial and non-Christian. No
wonder we're all suffering from a national
sense of emptiness and growing malaise
in what we believe is important to us as a
people and as a nation in the future. If we
continue on the road to cultural, political,
societal, educational, and religious
nothingness, then all our traditions will be
thrown out into the crude wasteland of
multiculturalism and multiracialism and
all the other "isms" that will eventually
kill us off completely. We gain everything,
yet lose our very soul and identity to
accommodate everybody, but us. So
we're already killing ourselves off

or letting others do it for us ...

Shame.
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Wishing you all a Very
Merry Christmas, Uncle Monty.
+20th Day of Advent, 2oo8.
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