Martin Louie Mayfield has been selling The Big Issue for 28 years.
Every day, he wakes early, travelling from his Fitzroy apartment to Southern Cross Station by 7 am. He works as a Big Issue vendor at the station until 10 am.
The Big Issue originates from the UK and is a street newspaper sold exclusively by vendors who have disadvantaged or marginalised backgrounds.
The Australian iteration of the newspaper began in June 1996.
Mayfield’s work as a vendor for The Big Issue began in 1996 when he and his wife were living in St. Kilda. He was eating lunch at Sacred Heart Mission St. Kilda when a recruiter for The Big Issue approached him about becoming a vendor.
Accepting the offer, Mayfield said he was taken straight from St. Kilda, and “given a lift” to The Big Issue’s head office on Collins Street.
Initially, Mayfield sold the magazine at Parliament Station, and then on Brunswick Street, before settling into his current seller position at Southern Cross Station.
Mayfield is an African-American man who grew up in the Bronx borough of New York City. He had two sisters, Cecilia and Renee, who have both since passed away. Cecilia died “very young” during the AIDS epidemic.
Renee, who died of COVID, had been living in Brooklyn and helping her two grandchildren with online school during COVID lockdowns.
His mother, Louise, was from Puerto Rico, and his father was involved in the military in World War II, in the “92nd Infantry Division”.
He was part of the only “completely intact African-American division in World War II”, said Mayfield.
Mayfield has experienced both liver cancer and lymphedema. He has had a liver transplant and had his gallbladder removed. As a result of his lymphedema, he often wears casts on his legs to relieve any discomfort.
Mayfield moved to Australia after meeting his wife Judith, who grew up in Adelaide. The two met while they were both backpacking in Kathmandu, Nepal. The pair moved to Adelaide together in 1983 before relocating to Bondi Beach in Sydney.
Judith studied English literature at Melbourne University. Mayfield said, “She was a big reader”.
Soon after, the couple relocated again to Melbourne, and Mayfield has lived here ever since.
Before working at The Big Issue, Mayfield worked in the labs of OPSM, making glasses for the brand from 1983 until 1989. Judith died in 1997, after a stroke.
When he’s not selling The Big Issue, Mayfield often enjoys Melbourne’s many low-cost food kitchens, such as Sisters of Mercy Fitzroy and the Salvation Army’s outpost on Bourke Street.
Mayfield enjoys the rotation of meals provided by these establishments, because they include a “more well-rounded menu than [he] would be giving [himself] at home”.
Mayfield recently discovered Soi 38, a famed Thai restaurant in a carpark off Bourke Street. Mayfield said he was very impressed with this “hole-in-the-wall” establishment when he spoke to The Swanston Gazette.
Mayfield says he enjoys his work as a vendor for The Big Issue. For him, the biggest perks are the ability to “laugh with people”.
He has “no intention to leave” anytime soon and doesn’t see himself retiring from the role unless his health forces him out.
Mayfield said working for The Big Issue has improved his outlook on life by allowing him to connect with new people. As a bonus, “it helps to pay the bills”.
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