“People creating inspires me to create”

What we asked Sexton Ming, artist, musician, and poet.

Sexton Ming is an artist, musician and poet. In the late 70s, he co-founded The Medway Poets, and in the late 90s, he was momentarily a Stuckist. Steven chatted with him about where he got that name, his brief time in the Stuckists, what he’s working on now, and lots more.

Sexton Ming. Photo: Jeff Pitcher.

Sexton Ming is an unusual name. What is its origin?
It came about in the old punk rock days. Everyone was giving themselves a pseudonym, like Phil Sick, that kind of thing. I just came up with Sexton from Sexton Blake and Ming from Ming the Merciless, Flash Gordon. You've got good and bad. Yin and yang.

Do you go by Sexton Ming all the time, or is that only for artistic purposes?
It's what people are comfortable with. I don't mind them referring to me with my real name or Sexton, whatever people are comfortable with.

What is your birth name, if you don't mind me asking?
Well, on my birth certificate is Anthony Stewart Waghorne. But of course, Anthony is shorted to Tony, and that's shorted to Tone, so people either call me Sexton or Tone.

Do you have a link to Medway’s famous Waghorn?
Has he got an E on the end of it?
He doesn't, no.
No, he's not part of the Waghorne clan. I think the Waghorne clan with the E on the end, we've got a bit of pikey in us.

You have, over time, been an artist, a poet, a musician. Is there one of those which takes priority?
Yeah, it would have to be music. I'm very passionate about music.

What instruments do you play?
Well, in the past, I've played drums. I don't think I could do that now because of my health. But basically, guitar, bass. I can muck around on keyboards. I can't play the piano, but I can play accompanying sounds.

Do you remember all the bands you've been in over the years?
When I was at school, I was in the original Aunties Vegetable. And then Scruffy Crew. And then the Gruff Men. What was after the Gruff Men? Oh, and then the second version of Auntie Vegetable with Bruce Brand, Allan Crockford, Jamie Taylor, and Ian Smith on drums. I think it was the Diamond Gussets. Oh, well, you know, doing a solo album. Then the Diamond Gussets.
And then, I'll tell you what I am doing now. On Bandcamp, if you type in Sexton Ming's Porridge Van, there'll be over 100 albums. You can download for free. I do that with a guy, Jason Williams. I think we started just before lockdown. We call it schiz rock. We both got baggage (laughs).

You're playing guitar on that?
Yeah. A lot of it is original soundtrack soundscapes.

You once released an album called Ban the Mindreader. Could you explain what that title was about?
Yeah, that was another band I was in. I don’t know if it’s still there, I haven’t been to Medway for years. Where the new Rochester station is, it used to be a car park, and you used to have a flea market every Saturday or something. There was this one wall that partitioned it off. There was this graffiti that said, ‘Ban the Mindreader, it causes headaches or nosebleeds.’ There was another one, I think, near Gillingham, a similar thing, Ban the Mindreader. We really liked the name. The music was nothing to do with that. We just called it Ban the Mindreader.

How did you come to be a member of the Medway Poets?
When I left school, I went to this writer's group at Gravesend Adult Education College. It was just full of old ladies writing Mills and Boone type stories and how they got published in Cosmopolitan and blah, blah, blah. One time, I turned up, and there were all these pamphlets, different writers groups and all that. I found this one, and it said, Our Crowd, publications like Uncle Nasty's Pork Pies, Gazonda. I thought, they sound so weird, they're on my wavelength. I wrote to Rob Earl, Out Crowd we were originally called. He sent in my poems, and eventually we changed the name to the Medway Poets. That's how I met Billy (Childish) and everyone. Just that chance of turning up that week and finding this little pamphlet.

How would you describe your poetry?
Again, I'd say schiz looking back. There's a great T-shirt actually. It says, ‘Be quiet, a schizophrenic is talking, listen and learn.’ Because we can see. It's hard, I think it is important, the schizophrenic’s opinion.

Did your poetry influence lyrics in the music, or are they very separate?
Well, my favourite poets actually are lyricists like Don Van Vliet, Captain Beefheart, Kevin Coyne. I see lyrics as poems, really. I'm not really interested in the established poets if you know what I mean. There's this one lyric by Phil Mayer, The Prefects: ‘As silver tears, they weave and lace, sad patterns upon her face.’ I mean, that is poetry. Lyrics are lyricists are my favourite poets. I’ve forgotten what the question was.
It was just about that connection between poetry and lyrics in the work that you do.
Yeah, because I think one of my poems was Watch Explosion. The meter was influenced by a track by Public Image. I can hear the melody… I don’t know… I'll shut up (laughs).