Ben Harvey: Perth burns survivor Robbie North needs your help to get a new car

I can be pretty harsh on people.

Decades of crime reporting has robbed me of patience.

I have seen too many people take the piss out of Good Samaritans.

Too many knowingly take the easy path in life, egged on by a legal and welfare system that eschews personal responsibility.

I have seen and spoken to hundreds of people who have made a mess of their lives through sheer laziness.

I believe in second chances, even thirds and fourths. But without extenuating circumstances, after that you’re on your own.

The bloke pictured below deserves more than three chances. He gets as many as he needs to get through a life which fire has rendered incomprehensibly challenging.

Spend a few seconds looking at that photo and then ask yourself whether you’d walk a mile in his shoes.

Shoes filled with twisted feet which have no toes.

Shoes you probably couldn’t put on in the first place because your hands are balls of scarred flesh bereft of fingers.

I first met Robbie North four years ago.

I was in the city and saw him selling copies of Big Issue in the Hay Street Mall. I was amazed at how deftly he scooped up leftover editions and put them into his backpack, evening managing to zip it up.

I was pretty sure this bloke had a story to tell and tracked him down through St Bart’s, which had helped him with some accommodation.

A long story about his life was published in 2020 and we have kept in touch since.

He complained about his beat-up Commodore in that article and a kind-hearted reader came to the party with a new(ish) car.

Robbie hit a kangaroo and totalled it not long after it arrived in his driveway. I’d like to say that was a one-off but Robbie always has trouble on the road.

He’s not a bad driver (he’s got his manual drivers licence) but he’s probably the most unlucky person I know.

This bloke could fall out of a boat and not hit water. In fact, he’d probably hit a rock and break his phone.

His streak of tough luck started on the morning of January 23, 1992, when he was playing with matches on his bed.

The first match didn’t strike. Nor the second.

In what turned out to be his inaugural bit of bad luck, the third did.

The bright flame terrified the four-year-old and in a panic he threw the lit Redhead behind him.

He gets as many chances as he needs because it is only by the grace of God that most people don’t have their lives defined by one moment of childish curiosity.

I reckon that 99 times out of 100 a match thrown that way would fizzle out within a couple of seconds after being smothered in the sheets.

The one Robbie threw landed on a fluffed-up part of the bed clothes and there was just enough oxygen to keep the match flickering.

That was his second, and life-changing, bit of bad luck.

His tiny body was enveloped in flames and melting polyester. It would have been as close to being immersed in lava as you can imagine and is upsetting me so much I am now going to quickly move on.

The next 32 years of Robbie’s life have had more downs than ups.

A bright spot was his recent marriage to Jess, who he met when he was selling Big Issue, but before that he was a bit all over the place.

He fell in with the wrong people. He took advantage of those who helped him and was taken advantage of. He lived rough and was regularly stolen from.

To be completely honest, Robbie brought a lot of trouble on himself.

I don’t care.

He gets as many chances as he needs because it is only by the grace of God that most people don’t have their lives defined by one moment of childish curiosity.

Here’s the nub of this column.

Robbie needs a car. Again. There’s only one thing worse than travelling to Fiona Stanley three times a week to have wounds that will never heal redressed and that’s having to go there on a bus.

It doesn’t need to be flash but it does need keyless entry and a push-button ignition. You can understand why.

I don’t know if any readers out there might have a vehicle they’re thinking of getting rid of, or know someone who is trading up.

I don’t know how many of you could afford to give something away instead of a getting a few bob on Facebook marketplace or carsales.com but if you are in that position, please flick me a message on this email: ben.harvey@wanews.com.au.

At the very least you will be doing something that banks a favour with the chief reporter of a newspaper. At best you will be making a difficult life a little easier for a bloke who needs a bit of help.

I hope to report some good news in next week’s column but understand if the cost-of-living problem means that good news doesn’t come.

And I also know that even if someone does give Robbie a car he’ll probably crash the bloody thing before next week’s edition of the paper hits the streets.