People / Interviews
‘I was a tramp, now I’ve found true love’
One of Bristol’s best known Big Issue sellers is getting married to a woman he first met when he asked her for money while begging.
But when Jack Richardson asked Toni Robinson for money almost two years ago, she apologised saying that she had none. Jack ended up giving Toni 50p so she could feed her electricity meter enabling her not to have to spend Christmas 2013 in the dark.
Over the next year, Toni often used to pass Jack’s Big Issue pitch outside Boston Tea Party on Park Street and they became firm friends.
is needed now More than ever
When Jack’s squat in a garage near the Victoria Rooms in Clifton got boarded up and he had nowhere else to go, Toni offered to put him up for a couple of months.
What happened next was true love. “We fell for each other, really quite quickly,” Jack told Bristol24/7.
“And this last year has been incredible for me. Everything has changed. Essentially I’ve gone from being a tramp living in a garage, to living indoors with an amazing woman.
“I’m now really looking towards to the future, instead of existing hand to mouth, day to day, just frantically trying not to go under, frantically trying to avoid all the traps that are out there for homeless people in the grip of despair.”
Some of Jack’s regulars will now be helping him out with the wedding preparations. One is a vicar who has promised to officiate at the service and provide the location. Another is a hairdresser who can do Toni’s hair. Another does wedding photography. Another is a graphic designer so can design all the invitations.
“I’m so excited,” Jack said. “So happy. It’s thrown me off guard. The first time I ever came to recount it to someone, it did strike me how much of a tale it is, how much of a sweet tale it is. If we had planned it, it couldn’t have turned out better.
“Despite the fact that I was living in a garage and looked like the Wild Man of Borneo, Toni could still see past all that and still see me underneath.”
As well as preparing for his wedding, 37-year-old Jack is also studying for a degree in psychology and sociology from the Open University, with the aim once he graduates of helping people off the streets.
Jack works seven days a week selling the Big Issue and takes one day off a month.
He is now such a fixture on Park Street that when the High Street of the Year Award judges were being shown around, they were introduced to Jack, who is well-known for putting a smile on people’s faces with his rhyming couplets.
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