CITY BIDS FAREWELL TO BIG ISSUE SELLER
MORE than 100 people attended a thanksgiving service to give a Big issue seller the ‘perfect send off ’.
Wellwishers paid their respects to the late Istvan Kakas at St Matthew’s Church, in Widcombe, Bath on Saturday morning.
Mr Kakas, who was known to thousands who saw him at Halfpenny Bridge behind Bath Spa railway station, died at the age of 52 at Bath’s Dorothy House Hospice on October 16 after a battle with leukaemia.
Following his death, tributes flooded in for the much-loved and well-known Hungarian and more than £4,600 has been raised in his memory.
Alongside his Big Issue duties, Mr Kakas was perhaps best known for rescuing a father and his eight-yearold daughter when they fell into the River Avon in 2014.
He later received a Mayor’s Citizen Award for his life-saving heroism.
The Rev Tim Buckley, of St Matthew’s Church, said the service was a fitting way to remember a Bath favourite.
“He was a very well-known and loved figure and we will miss him dearly. Halfpenny Bridge is not the same without him,” he said.
“He was a Bath favourite. I knew him for around 10 years and it was a pleasure getting to know Istvan.
“He showed such humanity and heart.
“Although he was poor he said he was quite rich because of the friendships he had.
“I baptised him five or six years ago and that was a privilege.
“May he rest in peace.”
Mr Kakas was renowned for decorating the bridge with flowers as well as tinsel and toys at Christmas time and for keeping his busy pitch tidy using the trusty broom.
A fervent Liverpool fan, he would bring a football with him on to the pitch and exchange passes with passers-by.
Any money left over from a fund set up in his memory will go to the Dorothy House where Mr Kakas received the “best possible care” in his final days.