12. The MissionGod’s Own Medicine
It’s a great record and I love The Mission! I was in their fan club, aged 16. They were probably one of the first bands I got to see live, at a fan club-only gig at Nottingham Rock City. That might have been 1987 or 1988.
I did love The Sisters of Mercy prior to The Mission forming but this is the record for me. I can still listen to it now. And it does transport me back to being that age. They were on Top Of The Pops doing ‘Severina’ and Julianne Regan was doing the backing vocals, obviously. Prior to that I had written a letter to their fan club: ‘Oh, I really love you!’ and all that sort of stuff and I’d put my phone number on there – you never know, they might phone up! And so I remember watching them do ‘Severina’ and the phone rang. My Mum or Dad answered and said, ‘Rachel, somebody called Wayne is on the phone for you.’ And I’m like, ‘What do you mean, Wayne?’ And it was Wayne Hussey!
In recent years, I’ve got to know Wayne pretty well. And when his first book of memoirs came out, I think I probably tweeted a picture of myself reading it and tagged him, and he contacted me. We started chatting and it turns out that he loves the first Soft Cavalry record. It was his favourite record of that year. His parents live in Bristol and me and my husband Steve went to meet him there. We went and had a pub lunch with him and we got on like a house on fire. And we stayed in touch ever since, which has been really nice for me actually. I think my initial first meeting with him, I was nervous because obviously, for teenage Rachel, he was a bit of an idol, you know?
We went to see him on his first book tour in Bath and we met his parents and they were so lovely. I love gardening and I later took a box of the plants from my garden to give to his mother, which she put in her garden. And I went to Cardiff recently and saw The Cult with The Mission supporting them. Wayne lives in South America so I’ll see him again when Slowdive play Sao Paulo in December.
And now, a genuine friendship has come out of that. We had a conversation about this phone call when I was 16. Growing up, he was in T-Rex’s fan club, and David Bowie’s fan club. So the whole fan club thing was really important. When I answered the phone he said something along the lines of, ‘This is Wayne from The Mission and I’ve got your letter.’ I think I was pretty gobsmacked! I remember asking him where his purple coat came from, and he told me that he’d had somebody make it for him in Nottingham. And then just being a bit, ‘Err… I don’t know what to say!’
I love The Mission and I still listen to God’s Own Medicine now and then. It’s like a warm hug. It’s a comfort blanket.
