Vendor interview: Cardiff
How did you get involved in selling the magazine?
Well, I was literally sleeping rough, and one of my friends, Claire, was doing the magazine and told me it was a good idea for me to make money to get into shelters and get interested in charity work. And I've always done charity work in Cardiff, where I used to work, and I’ve helped people in youth clubs and the Prince's Trust, where I met the Queen's husband...
How long have you been selling the magazine for?
Now that I think about it, it’s 3 to 4 years. Yeah, I've been here a long time. I lived in Shoreditch, till now I still sell it. So it does a lot for me, to tell you the truth. I talk to a lot of people every day. I learn new things, meet new people, and get around the city selling it.
Do you mainly sell in Shoreditch, or are you going all over?
I go all over. I go west, I go south, east, everywhere around the city.
Because we’re just here handing it out. I don't know where people go…
Some people go really far away. I go as far as Crystal Palace. I've been to Romford, selling it. Yeah, been to a lot of places.
And are people quite receptive to it, or does it depend?
I get the odd person who just comes up to me from nowhere and says, I love this magazine, and can I buy it and wants to subscribe to it. It’s a lot of people who want to subscribe to it. You tell them how to do it.
What do you do when you're not selling the magazine?
Well, I read. I do research. Often I go to the British Library, and I'm into critiques. I do Bigfoot research. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that—like, Dogman, Bigfoot, things like that. I do research about encounters. For instance, I've been to Pluckley, which is a place in Kent which is one of Britain's oldest haunted towns. Up north, Forest of Dean, places like that where Sasquatch really do exist.
Okay, nice.
It's pretty interesting.
Is that mainly what you're interested in?
Yeah, I print t-shirts of Bigfoot.
Are you into UFOs as well?
Kind of. Not a lot. Mainly Bigfoot.
If you could change one thing about the world tomorrow, what would you change?
Well. If I could change anything about the world, it would be for mankind to be allowed to travel past the ice wall around Antarctica. And leaving alone the national parks and wooded areas, the forested areas to be kept guarded.
You meet so many people in a day, when you're selling the magazine. What would you want people to know about you and your life?
Well, I would say I meet up to 150 people a day, if I’m early. I mean, maybe 200 sometimes from morning to night. But what I’d like people to know about me is I'm just an easy-going guy, a humble person. Likes to talk to people. I moved from Wales to London for a new life, came here for uni, and ended up staying. I’m just being myself, and just want to be acknowledged and noticed. I want people to help charities and to help people on the street and homelessness and addiction and things like that.
DOPE Magazine is free for anyone who wants to sell it in the street.
Photos: Emil Lombardo.
Each issue we print 40,000 copies, worth £120,000 to our vendors. Your £3/month subscription is used to print 30 copies per issue, worth £90 for our vendors. We went from 1000 copies per issue in 2018 to 40,000 per issue in 2025. The only thing stopping us from doing more is money. With your support, we can go even further. Help us print and distribute more copies for free to anyone who wants to sell it by becoming a monthly subscriber.