Manners Maketh Standards

Beatrice Groth meets the well mannered man behind the stack of Evening Standards at Stratford Station.

‘It’s all about the manners’.

Mark is the man who used to sell the Evening Standard on the concourse inside Stratford station. Since London’s evening paper went free, i.e. no cover price, now he gives them away. But Mark doesn’t just let you pick up a copy, with him standing around to replenish the piles of papers when they diminish. As often as he can, he makes a point of putting the latest edition right into your hand, a smile in his eye and a kind word for you – ‘free Standard, thank you and have a good day.’

Why take the trouble? Mark explains that ‘my mum taught me that good manners cost nothing’ – a good match, then, for a newspaper that nowadays doesn’t cost nothing neither.

Mark’s Mum is Irish; his Dad, Jamaican. Having started out behind a stall in Ridley Road market, he’s 54 now.

Mark is one of three former vendors paid to give away copies of the Standard in Stratford (besides Mark’s spot inside the station, there’s one more in Westfield and another in the old shopping mall). Between them they shift 15,000 copies each night. But Mark is the main character. ‘This is what I know how to do best, and this is all I’m going to do for the rest of my life,’ he insists.

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