{"id":488409,"date":"2025-10-10T13:17:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T13:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/488409\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T13:17:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T13:17:12","slug":"cristian-waitrose-morningside-edinburgh-big-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/488409\/","title":{"rendered":"Cristian, Waitrose, Morningside, Edinburgh – Big Issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Image: Exposure Photo Agency<\/p>\n

I\u2019m doing alright at the moment. I\u2019ve been on my pitch here for seven years. Waitrose forever ha ha! I have been selling the magazine<\/a> for more than 11 years: I started in Edinburgh city centre, did four years in Livingston and seven years outside Waitrose. <\/p>\n

Sometimes it\u2019s OK selling the magazine on my pitch but sometimes it\u2019s a nightmare because of the beggars here. I had one person there for a couple of weeks and he was pushing me off my pitch saying that it was his place to beg. I said that he was wrong to push me because it\u2019s not his place, it\u2019s free for everybody. I do think that begging has got worse over time and the people begging here are not doing anything to build good relations. Big Issue helps me when there is a problem with the beggars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Your support changes lives. Find out how you can help us help more people <\/strong>by signing up for a subscription<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

If you respect people, they respect you as well so there\u2019s no drama. I have many regular customers because it is a very popular area here and people are very nice, very kind and very helpful. The staff at Waitrose, the manager and everybody, treat me well because I am a good person and don\u2019t do anything bad over there. Sometimes when I have finished selling the magazine I do my shopping there. Everybody knows me. I just want to say thank you to everybody who has supported me. They take care of me and I respect them very much.<\/p>\n

I am looking forward to Christmas. I love it because it is very busy! People are more generous when it gets to the cold weather. I always try to keep warm and last week I went to buy some clothes for cold weather. I got everything: jacket, gloves, hat, a Thermos.<\/p>\n

I enjoy selling the magazine. <\/strong>You make friends, you talk with people, you get some information, you explore everything in the world speaking on your pitch. Like I said, it\u2019s all about respect and if you have the right temperament.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n

I use a wheelchair and I get to my pitch on the bus. <\/strong>Half an hour to and from my home is alright. I am in a wheelchair because, when I was born, the nurse dropped me on the floor and broke my spine. I can\u2019t walk \u2013 half of my body doesn\u2019t allow me to walk. I use a catheter and sometimes I take pills for spasms in my muscles. But it\u2019s alright, I am still alive!<\/p>\n

If I didn\u2019t have Big Issue in my life I would be struggling because I am a person who likes to make more friends and have a chat. I am not a person to stay locked inside. I like to have conversations: it helps me with my mental health. Big Issue gives me the tool to speak to people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to stay where I am now because I don\u2019t know what will happen in the future. <\/strong>My health condition will get worse as I get older. I will see in the future what happens. I try to live each day the best I can.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been to London twice with Big Issue, visiting the House of Lords as a guest of Lord Bird<\/a>. I enjoyed it. I would like, in the future, to do an experiment where I sell Big Issue in London but it is very hard because accommodation is really expensive. I would like to see how it works there.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image: Exposure Photo Agency I\u2019m doing alright at the moment. I\u2019ve been on my pitch here for seven…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-488409","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115350067288056775","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}