'It was like the place was waiting for me': Three Big Issue vendors went to the Lake District – and were transformed

For most of us, summer is a chance to get away from it all, to jet off to the beach or to get ready to ramble in the countryside. That’s often not a luxury afforded to Big Issue vendors, working hard all year round in villages, towns and cities to sell the magazine and change their life through enterprise. 

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So when three Big Issue vendors – London sellers Easton Christian and André Rostant, and Bristol’s Mark Ramsey – were given the opportunity to visit a retreat in the Lake District, it was a rare chance for them to escape the hustle and bustle of the city and experience the breathtaking sights, contemplative solitude and humbling natural beauty of the Lakes. 

Taking in the view from the summit of the Old Man of Coniston, or watching the sunrise over the Cumbrian peaks, the two-day retreat offered a profound sense of perspective and a space to reflect on their own lives. 

And it had a transformative effect. 

“Walking, hiking up them hills, nothing around me, just the wild, it was just something else. It’s somewhere I’m meant to belong,” as Mark put it. 

Beyond The View (BTV), is an organisation running ‘pilgrimages’ in the Lake District. It invited the vendors on the trip, with the help of funding from the Diocese of Carlisle. 

The operation’s strapline is Connect, Reflect and Act, focusing on the power of connecting to nature on a more profound level than just admiring the scenery. Its Lakeland Pilgrimage takes participants to the beauty spot’s seven mountains – or ‘natural cathedrals’ as BTV calls it.  

“What we’re looking to do through Beyond The View is really connect people more deeply with nature on a spiritual level,” said BTV’s John Fleetwood. “Looking at the Big Issue vendors, obviously they’re in an urban environment and probably not the first people you’d think of for something like this. 

“I wanted to work with a disadvantaged group to demonstrate that this can work for everybody.” 

Access to the countryside has been under the spotlight in recent years. A row between a landowner in Dartmoor and countryside lovers saw a ban on wild camping that was later overturned with the row escalating to the Supreme Court. 

The retreat underlines the universal benefits of the great outdoors and shines a light on the need for access to be for everyone. Big Issue support and outreach worker Ben Reynolds, who also attended the retreat, says: “What we did was a very privileged thing that more middle-class people do. 

So for people who have been disaffected by society, it allowed them to get that insight. 

“For some people, that’s a holiday. But for these gentlemen, it was a thought process. It allowed them to think about life.” 

The Big Issue group was joined by filmmakers from Land & Sky Media who plan to make a short documentary on the retreat to enter into the Kendal Mountain Festival. And it will certainly live long in the memory for vendors too. At least one of them yearns to return to the great outdoors. 

Mark said: “I’ve got the bug for it but obviously I can’t get back because it’s money, money, money to do that. I just want to go over the next hill and see what that bit is.” 

This is our vendors’ story about the trip, told in their own words:

Vendor Mark Ramsey: ‘I’m still there in my head’

The Big Issue trio’s two-day retreat saw them conquer The Old Man of Coniston fell and waking up at 4.30am to sample the sunrise (a rare treat in itself in a wet and gloomy summer). 

It was a world away from the everyday – and that proved to be a challenge for Bristol seller Mark. 

The 50-year-old initially wanted to go home after finding the rural location to be too far outside his comfort zone. 

But by the time he came home, he wanted to go back. 

“I’m still there in my head,” he said. “It’s like a place that has always been there, but was just seeking me out for me to go there. I was in my element. I can’t get it out of my head at the moment.” 

The turning point for Mark came when he was asked to remove his shoes and socks and step into a stream to ponder the connection between the flora and fauna in the natural world, while listening to blessings read out by the organisers. 

“That obviously really connected with him because he probably stayed another five minutes after everybody else had got out and you could see from the expression on his face that he was loving it and getting something out of the experience,” said Fleetwood. 

• Easton Christian, White City tube station, London
• Andre Rostant, 58, Carnaby Street, Soho
• Meet the Big Issue sellers set to run the London Marathon for charity

For Mark, who has battled alcoholism, the trip started as two days without the prospect of a drink, but the transformative impact of nature gave him the space to think about how to tackle the issue. More urbanites could benefit from an escape from the city to rethink their lives, he concluded. 

“When you’re in the AA meetings there is pressure. You’re in a group and you sit down together.  

“On this retreat, you can just do your own thing and there’s the wild and everything else that goes with it. You’re just connected to nature and the healing power of it. That beats any drug to me. Stuff like that is hard to get funded but it should be. 

Vendor André Rostant: ‘I’ve never seen anyone so happy going up a hill’

None of the three vendors on the trip had met before, and the retreat offered a rare opportunity for them to build a bond. 

Soho seller André was immediately impressed with his two companions’ climbing prowess. 

“Mark went up that mountain like a jackrabbit. He was at the top of one when we were halfway up,” he said. 

“I’ve never seen anyone so happy going uphill, apart from Easton. He’s quite relaxed. He strolled up that mountain as if he was walking down Clapham High Street, it was nothing to him.

“If it had been twice as high he’d still have just strolled up it. The company was fantastic.

“It was straightforward getting to the summit. I got a bit breathless because I’m a bit podgy but I survived it. What was terrifying was I’m not so keen on heights: coming up, you’re looking at the bit of hill in front of you. But coming down, you can see the whole world and it’s all underneath you and it’s just terrifying. Somebody very kindly lent me those Nordic walking sticks. One of the people there literally held my hand going down. Otherwise, it would have taken about three times as long to get down as it did up.” 

For André, it was the view of the early-morning sun rising over the hills that really captured the imagination. 

“We got up at 4.30 in the morning and usually if I’m up at that time in the morning I’m going to bed rather than on the way to doing something else. That being said, it was invigorating. When you get up at 4am in silence and lovely twilight and up a not-very-arduous hill, you look up at the sunrise that inspired that poem and you hear the sheep bleating, it’s a fabulous experience. I’m a raving atheist but it is kind of a spiritual experience. It didn’t shake my atheism but certainly makes you reflect.” 

A prolific creative, André released his song, Big Issue Ballad, last year and earlier this year he published his novel, The Muffin Man. The pilgrimage experience also unlocked his inner poet and he penned the poem Tranearth on his way home: 

All across these copper sunrise-burnished 
Hills of Coniston ewes call their young. 
The constant hours pass. 
There is no other sound 
Besides the rushing stream, 
Breeze-bothered trees, 
Until at last grey mist 
Draws down curtain night. 
Still the ewes call. 
Their voices – those of council estate mums 
Summoning their children to tea – 
Bookend the days.

Like Mark, returning home put the trip into perspective for André. 

“In London, you can see the air and taste it. There I wasn’t even sure I was breathing at times, it was very fresh,” he said. 

“There’s the opportunity to think nothing for a short while – you don’t really get the opportunity to think nothing. There was nothing else to do but go up the hill. It’s very hard to set aside time to do that sort of thing. You just don’t find yourself doing it habitually. Consequently, you don’t get an opportunity to rest your mind.” 

Vendor Easton Christian: ‘It brought back all these memories’

For Easton, walking through the hills brought back memories of growing up in Jamaica 

The 70-year-old, who became homeless after his father died and still sells the magazine in London’s White City, said: “I’ve not been out into the countryside really – in Jamaica I used to but not since I moved to Coventry in 1972.  

“It brought back all those memories of going into the countryside with my grandmother and going through the bushes.  

“Going up the hills, the grass around it was wet, and then when you came back down and the sun was shining it brought it all back.” 

In fact, Easton was so taken with the experience that he even bought a book that explores blessings and the history of the Lake District from Fleetwood, who later admitted that it “blew him away”. 

That’s how spiritual the experience was for Easton. 

For him, it brought to mind psalms 18:2-12 from the Bible, which says: “The lord is my Rock, my fortress, my place of safety. He is my God, the Rock I run to for protection. He is my shield; by his power I am saved. He is my hiding place high in the hills”. 

“That’s what went through my mind when they were telling me about the rock and its history,” he told us. 

“I was relieved when I got to the top! Some parts of it were hard but you just get on with it I suppose. It just felt like if I went near the edge I would tip over, it just had that feeling about the place.”  

Cake news

The vendors were treated to a cake baked by Abbi Bramble, as seen in last year’s Great British Bake Off. Bramble is a friend of John Fleetwood and her strawberry cake was a hit.

André: “It was absolutely delicious. It was worth going just for the cake. It wasn’t too sweet, it was just perfect.” 

On song

Mark: “All the people who were there, it was like I’d seen them before. It was like the place was waiting for me. When I stepped out of the cabin at the back, it was nice to have the tranquillity of it, the clean air of it.” 

André: “The songs never mentioned Christ but were totally and completely Christian songs. You could see they were always teetering on the verge of singing Kumbaya every last one. But they exercised tremendous restraint.” 

Dream boat

Easton: “We took the boat to go to the train station. The luggage we had was in a different car and we had to go to meet them to take us to the train station. It was nice to be on the boat and it was quicker than walking!”

Beyond The View describes itself as a “movement that seeks to facilitate deeper, transcendent experiences of nature, helping people to find purpose, meaning, wholeness and delight”. The organisation, which is applying to be a charity, runs pilgrimages to the Lake District to give people a chance to connect with nature, reflect on their lives and take lessons from the wilderness.

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