Christine McVie: My mother had real healing powers

Christine McVie has claimed her mother had genuine healing powers and once cured an old woman of cancer.

The Fleetwood Mac musician’s late mum Beatrice E.M earned a living as a medium, faith healer and psychic and although she kept some of her work hidden from her daughter, Christine can recall one vivid memory when she used her abilities to eradicate terminal cancer from a friend of her father’s Cyril Perfect.

In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, Christine shared: "I believe they (my mother’s powers) were real. She was a healer. I just wanted her to be an ordinary mum, so the less I knew of that side the better, but here’s a story I can tell you. There was an old friend of my dad’s, in Newcastle – this rich old lady who lived in a run-down castle. She had terminal cancer. She sent a pair of her kid gloves to my mother, who wore one during the night, and a couple of weeks later there was a phone call: the doctors were amazed that all the cancer was completely gone."

Christine, 73, doesn’t believe she inherited any of her mother’s psychic powers, however, the way in which she was inspired to write her track ‘Songbird’ – from Fleetwood Mac’s acclaimed 1977 album – was as an unusual "spiritual" experience.

Recalling the experience of writing ‘Songbird’, she said: "That was a strange little baby, that one. I woke up in the middle of the night and the song just came into my head. I got out of bed, played it on the little piano I have in my room, and sang it with no tape recorder. I sang it from beginning to end: everything. I can’t tell you quite how I felt; it was as if I’d been visited – it was a very spiritual thing. I was frightened to play it again in case I’d forgotten it. I called a producer first thing the next day and said, ‘I’ve got to put this song down right now.’ I played it nervously, but I remembered it. Everyone just sat there and stared at me. I think they were all smoking opium or something in the control room. I’ve never had that happen to me since. Just the one visitation. It’s weird."