TAVISTOCK's new Big Issue seller, Graham Walker, is also, improbably Barnstaple's best citizen of the year.

He was voted the title overwhelmingly by readers of a North Devon newspaper, leaving the town's eminent dignitaries standing. He has just been back to Barnstaple for a dinner, a trip to the theatre and a night at a first-class hotel as the guest of the local community.

'I'm really chuffed, I think it's nice that the award went to a normal person, not to an official,' he said.

The recognition was for the fund-raising which he has carried out for Barnstaple charities after the death of his nineteen year-old nephew Darren in a local hospice.

He dressed up in top hat and tails and played a tape of Fred Astaire music for a week in which he requested donations to local children's charities through an insert which he put in the Big Issue.

'I asked for gifts for children in wrapping paper and got 1,300 of them, as well as £1,500 in cash.'

He has been combining sales of the Big Issue, the magazine about homelessness, with raising money for charity for the past four years and has now topped £16,000.

It began in Tavistock four years ago with an appeal to help children damaged by the nuclear explosion at Chernobyl. After a period in Totnes he went to Newton Abbot last year, where he raised £4,000.

'I like to put something back into the community as a thank-you for the people who have helped me,' he said. 'I have to stay a few months in any place before I become trusted.'

He moved back to Tavistock a couple of weeks ago for 'a bit of quiet' after the excitement of his seven months in Barnstaple.

He had pleasant memories of Tavistock, so when he heard the pitch was vacant he was keen to return.

He has booked the pitch here until the end of July; after that he is unsure what he may do. Friends are helping him out with a room to sleep while he is looking for a caravan to rent for his stay.

Besides the quirky inserts — anecdotes, poems, observations — which he writes himself for the Big Issue, he is well-known in the towns where he has been a vendor for his amusing signs: 'Please form an orderly queue', 'Buy a Big Issue or the dog gets it!' and 'Due to the current economic crisis all credit facilities have now been suspended.'

His is a soft-sell technique. He tries to keep cheerful as he says 'people don't want to hear bad luck stories.'

He has to travel to Plymouth to buy his supply of magazines. Whatever profit he makes he keeps. Sales fluctuate a lot, but last year he was making around £90 a week. He said he would rather do that than claim benefit.

He has been homeless for around seven years, since the break-up of his marriage, but first became homeless at 17 and has been so on and off ever since. He tried moving into a flat a few months ago but it did not work out.

'I don't want to spend the rest of my life like this, but I'll carry on until I'm ready to get my own place. Tavistock is friendly and it's a nice part of the country to be.'