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Church in Wales
UK News

Vicar to appear on BBC music show

by Hannah Tooley

Revd Alex Mayes, the Vicar of Kerry near Newtown in Wales, has revealed her love of 80's music as part of a new BBC TV programme.

She and her partner George Bearwood are going to feature in the People's History of Pop, a new series being broadcast on BBC4 later in 2016.

The programme will investigate how different their musical tastes are.

Revd Alex grew up near Manchester in the 1980's, and said: "I loved the 1980s, especially Duran Duran and in particular the band's drummer, Roger Taylor.

"My twin sister, who was a John Taylor fan, and I used to walk around Timperley with a ghetto blaster, listening to Duran Duran.

"I was also a big fan of Nik Kershaw, Howard Jones and Paul Young.

"Like many teenagers of my time, I'd record the Top 40, pausing between tracks to create my own mix tape."

Her partner George however loves punk and owns a shop called Caligari & Verne.

He hated mainstream 80s music and was a massive fan of punk.

George said: "The Damned were and continue to be my favourite band.

"My most treasured possession is a framed front cover of Sounds magazine featuring The Damned in 1976.

"I was into punk and that changed my life. I grew up in the Black Country and the emergence of punk gave me something new to which I could aspire.

"No longer did I have to get a job I didn't care about, I could dye my hair pink, paint by nails black, form a band and make music my life."

Church in Wales

The pair met at theological college and Alex became a priest eight years ago.

Alex says she is still unsure that some of George's favourite bands actually exists: "I have to see the record sleeve to believe in the name of some bands," she said.

"Who'd call a band Splodgenessabounds or Throbbing Gristle or worse!?

"I bought a T-shirt for George last year saying "I listen to bands which haven't been formed yet!" and that sums up precisely his musical tastes.

"For me, if a band didn't make it into the Gallop Top 40, they weren't really a band!"

George added: "I listened to the John Peel Show on Radio 1 and those sorts bands rarely made it into the Top 40.

"I suspect if we'd met in the 1980s we never would have spoken to each other, let alone started a relationship.

"Nowadays, while we may not like each other's musical tastes, it's part of the landscape of our lives and forms an important creative and positive tension between us.

"And it's an opportunity to find some common ground in our musical tastes too. Joy Division and Adam and the Ants are probably the only two bands we can agree were good, but even then the tracks that I like, Alex won't and vice a versa!"

Alex and George were filmed for the BBC programme in St Michael's Church in Kerry, where Alex is the Vicar.

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