The Prince and Princess of Wales visited Reverend Mick (left) Charity in Burnley (Photo: PA)
For the founder of the Church on the Street, a former drug dealer and gangster, who was arrested twice on suspicion of murder, turned his life around after finding his faith.
With his dark glasses and dog collar, he made Reverend Mick Fleming an unexpected guardian of the royal couple. However, despite his fearsome reputation, the former criminal has proven an inspiring presence in his hometown of Lancashire.
In his twenties, Reverend Mick was a well known drug dealer and drug dealer. Today, he dedicates his life to helping those in need. They include Deacon Glover, 11, whose mother Grace, 28, died during the pandemic. Reverend Mick took her funeral and paid for it with donations to his organization.
Speaking to grieving Deacon and his great-grandmother Carol Ellis during a visit in January, Prince William told his little one: “I lost my mom when I was 15, it’s hard but it got easier, I promise.”
He added, “I can tell you something – never stop talking about it. Keep it alive in your memory, in your heart.”
As Reverend Mick tells today, it was a special moment. “There was a link between them,” he says. “No one had ever said to Deacon, ‘I lost my mom too.’ I watched the start of Deacon’s recovery there. I thought it was beautiful. It made a difference.”
Later as head of the Football Association, Prince William was able to arrange for Deacon to visit Burnley’s Directors’ Fund and meet his top star Nick Pope.
Animated Prince William organized a meeting with hero Deacon Goalie Nick Pope (Photo: SWNS)
“Prince William was true to his word,” Mick recalls. “Deacon met the goalkeeper and got an autographed jersey and gloves. Something wonderful came out of all that pain. He had the time of his life that day. The pain goes away when you use it forever. That’s my faith.”
The royal visit was a validation of Mick’s stunning transformation, helping to win over any final naysayers questioning his transformation from hustler to community hero.
Just 18 months ago, while conducting Bible services in a parking lot next to the local police station at the height of the pandemic, he was challenged by skeptical officers about violating lockdown rules after only a few weeks of outdoor services.
Mick remembers how one officer asked, “What are you doing? It’s illegal.” In response, he opened the back of his truck to show he was delivering food to those who needed it most.
“The cops got into their trucks and drove off,” he says. “The church on the street was alive. We found a way to perform the church when the others closed.”
Now Church on the Street, founded in 2019, has found a permanent home in what used to be a gym in a former mill town in Lancashire. A BBC documentary on Pastor Mick’s work in December 2020 has generated a staggering £250,000 donation.
Reverend Mick founded the church on the street in 2019 (Photo: Lanx Live/Judd Tolson)
But the high-profile royal visit that followed may never have happened. When one of Prince William’s employees called him for the first time from Kensington Palace, Mick Misherd, thinking he might be calling from Crystal Palace the football team. Only during a subsequent Zoom call did the money drop.
“I love the royal family, but with my past I never thought they would let a royal family within 200 yards of me, I don’t mind shaking my hand and other things,” he says. “I thought it was a little crazy.”
At the height of the pandemic, Mick began using some of the money donated to the church on the street to pay for funerals for those who couldn’t afford them. As he said to the royal couple, “If we weren’t here or something like us wasn’t here, I wouldn’t even dare to think…”
We’re talking today because Mick reclaimed a lot of personal pain to write his memoir, Blown Away: From Drug Dealer to Life Bringer. His Irish Catholic parents, born in Burnley, were pioneers of the Church. Because he was the only son with several sisters, he was a mummy’s son, gentle, shy and sensitive.
When he was eleven years old, a stranger pulled him off the street and raped him. Just as he was about to tell his father, his 20-year-old sister Anne suffered a fatal heart attack.
Unwilling to add to the family’s grief, he kept his ordeal to himself, taking his mother’s painkillers to ease his pain. It was the beginning of a journey into addiction.
Childhood photos of Pastor Mick (picture: )
“I started stealing,” he admits. “I became a really good criminal. At the age of 15 I was making more money than my parents. I was wearing a jacket over the chair in my bedroom to do purse stealing.”
By the age of 17 he was addicted to alcohol and drugs and his life spiraled into disarray over the next few decades. He became a ruthless and muscular drug dealer working in Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow with major crime syndicates.
He frankly admits: “I’ve been arrested for every serious offense you can think of.” They lead a life of harming others, whether drug dealers or something else.
“I was fortunate that I didn’t make really long sentences. I call it a blessing but on the other hand I think I did a life sentence in my head. I had many guns. In the world I’ve been working in, it’s very easy to get firearms.”
He was never accused of murder, but in his book Warts, Meek recounts an epiphany during a gang job when he was sent to retrieve a debt from a man he knew was attending a gym.
“I had a firearm wrapped in a carry-on,” he recalls. “I watched him get out of the gym. He had two kids, two toddlers, blonde girls, about five years old with him. I got out of the car, walked over, and reached for my hand to the plastic.
“But then I looked again at the children, again at their faces, their blond hair, the innocent children. And then it happened.” Mick describes in detail seeing a bright light coming from one of the children’s hands.
“It was white, crisp white,” he says. “I couldn’t see for 15 seconds.” “It was like looking at the sun and I was paralyzed.”
Mick doesn’t know what really happened to him that day, but this was the moment that changed his life forever. “I started shivering and sweating and getting sick and they just walked right past.”
Overwhelmed by the turmoil, he set off and set off for an industrial estate, where he was praying.
“Nothing happened so I punched the radio, and hit the steering wheel. I shouted, ‘Where is this god?’ Am I too evil? “At that moment I put the gun under my chin, pulled the trigger, and it didn’t go off.
“I felt at that moment that the God to whom I cried had answered that prayer because the gun had not fired.”
Pastor Mick was part of a BBC documentary on the impact of the pandemic (Photo: BBC)
Pause: “I wish I could say I never took a drug or a drink again, but it was the beginning of the end.”
His long and painful journey to recovery began at a later meeting of drug and alcohol addicts, where he put his faith in God.
Later, when an assailant saw his childhood in a fast food restaurant, he was torn whether to forgive him or kill him.
“I put a knife in my sleeve,” he says today. “I was going to kill him. I was going to put the knife to his neck.” But when he spoke to the man, whom he did not recognize, he changed his mind and instead helped his abuser seek help from his chronic alcoholism.
“I never told him it was the man who raped me. I had a choice and I chose to forgive. It changed my life.”
As his faith deepened, he studied theology as a mature student at a Christian college associated with the University of Manchester.
Then Mick discovered he had dyslexia and a vision problem, which he now helps by wearing dark glasses.
He began his service by sitting next to a McDonald’s and befriending the homeless and hungry. His street church is now a beehive of activity, thanks to the donations of those who have been inspired by his message of faith and hope.
“There is no other church in the world like ours,” he said proudly. “The NHS works from here, providing health checks for the poor. The NHS mental health team is working with us as well. We have rehabilitation support here as well to help people struggling with addiction.
“There is hot food available seven days a week and we have a huge food bank. We have showers and washers and dryers to help the homeless and others.
“A lot of prostitutes come in and we have a hairstylist who comes in to style the men’s hair. Every Sunday, in the middle of all of this, I do a church service. It works.”
“We see life changing. We see people wake up and go to work. Five people went to get degrees. It’s exceptional.”
Blown Away is now available for purchase on Express Bookshop, link below (picture: )
Mick’s third wife, Sarah, is in recovery from cancer. A former addict, she helps in the church also by doing ladies’ nails and providing support for the weak.
Reverend Mick is pleased that Prince William has written an introduction to his book, which epitomizes the spirit of the church.
The new Prince of Wales wrote: “It is impossible to visit the church in the street and not be so impressed by the work the organization does for those in need.”
“It is an exceptional place that has been an important sanctuary and a place of safety for many. Often, it is only by sharing our problems and being honest with ourselves that we can address and overcome life’s challenges.
“And with that, we find how deep the bonds we share are.”
Blown By Reverend Mick Fleming (SPCK, £19.99) Available now. To get a free P&P in the UK, visit expressbookshop.com or call 02031763832.
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