Meet Ruth, The Big Issue Australia vendor in Adelaide

Dear Ruth,

Right now, life is good and busy. You love your parents and life in a big family with eight siblings. Very soon, at 14, you will get your first job. Then, at 17, you will find yourself pregnant and getting married. By the time you are 23, you will have four children and will be working full-time. There will never be a time when you are not working, unless you are giving birth.

You will think you are smart when you go and buy your first packet of cigarettes. You buy them because everyone at work smokes and you feel left out.

By the time you are 37, you’ll have been married for 20 years but you will suddenly want out. You will not know why. Your eldest child will be independent and working by this time, but you will still have three children – and yourself – to support. So you will keep working – various factory jobs and, at one stage, grape picking. Working like a dog. Then you get a job at Balfours bakery, where you will end up working for 20 years.

In the 90s, the pokies will come to South Australia, and you will find yourself going to the pokies after work. If you think you are going to win, think again. You will not win. But it will take a long time for you to learn this lesson.

My number one piece of advice to you, young Ruth, is don’t buy that first pack of cigarettes, even though everyone else is smoking. Because later you will have health problems, and you will regret that decision. The three deadly sins are smoking, the filthy pokies and divorce – they will ruin your life, plus your children’s and your grandchildren’s lives.

Put your name up for public housing. It will give you something secure, rather than boarding houses. The Housing Trust will come through with a place for you. It will be a cottage – a small but quaint place. You will move in there when you are 63. At this point, you will tell yourself not to make any more mistakes. No pokies and no cigarettes.

When you move into the cottage, you’ll have no furniture – only two blankets and a pillow – and it will take almost two years to buy all the things you will need, working for next to no money cleaning a backpackers’ hostel. Believe me, this will be the hardest job yet!

But at the backpackers you will meet a lady who sells The Big Issue. At first, you will think this is a stupid idea, standing out there trying to sell the magazine. But you give it a go, and to tell you the truth, it will end up being the best decision you will make. You will meet tonnes of beautiful people – some who will become good friends. The money will be good, and you will enjoy doing this work.

Try to behave!

Ruth

Courtesy of The Big Issue / INSP.ngo