The Big Issue - UK (2020-11-30)

FROM 30 NOVEMBER 2020 BIGISSUE.COM | 21

Sam Fender:How are you doing?

Earl John Charlton: I’m alright fella. I thought

today I would like to try and explain not just about

myself, but how I got here. I was born in South

Shields and I was made on the streets. When I

was 14 years old, I le�t Shields and went on my

own journey in my life, to a point where I hit an

addiction. From 19 years old until a few years ago I

was on heroin, crack cocaine, methadone, alcohol

and all that. I started doing The Big Issue when I

was still begging in London, I was still using drugs

and that but I slowly started seeing better in

myself and what I can do. Who I am and what I’m

about now is all due to my pathway of doing

The Big Issue. It kept me focused through my

recovery. I’m coming up to fi ve years clean now.

Sam: Oh wow. Well done. You’ve had a real tough

run, mate. With this lockdown, can you not get out

[to work] at all then?

Earl: I can’t get out and sell a magazine on the

street. But you can go on the map and support a

vendor of your choice by buying a subscription.

You can buy a gi�t subscription for someone too.

Because we’re stuck indoors, straightaway The

Big Issue was on the phone saying, “It’s not what

you would make but we will give you £25 a week

in your bank accounts and food vouchers from the

supermarkets of our choice.” But it wouldn’t have

been done without the general public.

Sam: That’s great. We’re going to do a link on my

site, so that people can buy The Big Issue with my

da�t face on the front. I hope that helps. There’s

a lot of good kids out there. It restores my faith

in humanity. They’re eager to make the world a

better place. So hopefully they’ll jump on that link,

and then subscribe.

My stepdad is from Newry [in Northern

Ireland]. He was actually homeless himself at one

point. He was armed forces and he ended up on

the street for quite a while. One of my friends who

passed away, she spent a lot of her years homeless

and in and out of shelters. It permeated my life

when I saw my friend go through the things she

went through. We’ve a lot of friends up here [in the

north-east of England] who’ve become homeless

over the years. It just shows that it’s so close to

home. People don’t realise how close it is.

Earl: I resonate with that, man.

Sam: How has lockdown been for you?

Earl: I treated the fi rst lockdown like an eight-

month prison sentence. I’ve been in there, bud,

I’ve been in isolation. I kept myself to basically

exercising every day with my little bench out the

back. I kept myself faultless in the routine. And this

kept going on until just before the end of the fi rst

lockdown. And then I got asked if I would write a

poem for a book called Same Boat, done by Church

Action on Poverty. I wrote a poem down and I sent

it o�f to them, well it’s only been published!

Sam: Get in! Can I just say, your name is absolutely

cracking. You sound like a writer from like 100

years ago.

Earl: I never used it for 25 years, man. Because

when I was in school, I got bullied. I didn’t have the

best of this or best of that. One of the things they

always picked on to trigger me was my name. So

when I ran away at 14 years old, my second name

being Charlton, I abbreviated it down to Chaz. It

was only when I come back home in 2016 that my

family started calling me Earl. Because of a bully, I

stripped myself of my name, you know? And I love

my name. I think it’s a brilliant name.

Sam: I resonate with the bullying thing, because

I got bullied quite a lot through both primary

school and high school. Bullying erodes your

self-esteem, and it’s horrible. But I feel like it’s

been a powerful tool for me. It always drove me to

strive forward in life.

Earl: I hate bullies. I mean, I’m six foot one now,

fella. But when I was growing up, I was a bit of a

chubby kid. The teachers never seen me getting

bullied, they just saw me retaliate. And then who

gets expelled? The person that retaliates. And the

bullies are still laughing. I can see my path and

where it’s all started from. The e�fects of that as a

child, it does go on into your later years.

Sam: Once any Geordie does some music and

gets together a bit of money behind him, the fi rst

thing you do is go to therapy. I realised that a lot

of the way I react to things, or whenever I’ve went

mental and done bad things and drunk too much

or whatever, it all kind of stems back to traumas in

the past. To hear you have all of those traumas and

are where you are now, you should be really proud

of yourself. I love making music. It’s fantastic.

And it’s great fun. But musicians, we’re primarily

just entertainers. We’re not heroes. But to do

something like this makes me feel like I’m actually

doing something helpful. And I think that’s more

rewarding than playing to 50,000 people. It’s more

rewarding than any number one.

Earl: Sam, I’d like to say thank you. No matter what

the public’s perception of a famous person doing

something like this, I can truly say from speaking

to you that it’s from the heart. Everyone, famous or

not, goes around every day and sees the homeless

situation and chooses to ignore it – and you’re not

ignoring it, man. I say thank you from myself and

others that you’re helping.

Words: Laura Kelly @laurakaykelly

COVER STAR SAM

Sam wants as many people as

possible to subscribe to The Big

Issue this Christmas – you can

even link your purchase to a

specifi c vendor –

bigissue.com/vendors

And we’ve also produced a

collector’s edition of the mag

with Sam on the cover. To

snap it up go to: samfender.com

Proceeds from this special edition

will help vendors like Earl.

NEWEVERYWEEK|AHANDUPNOTAHANDOUT

SAMFENDERCHRISTMASSPECIAL

£5.00

SAM

FENDERHAS

AVERYSPECIAL

YOU

EXCLUSIVECOLLECTOR’S

EDITION

ALLPROCEEDSFROM

THISSALEGOBACKTO

THEBIGISSUE

CELEBRATIN

G

SO

CI

AL

KINDNESS