Barnesey’s story hits a chord with DV victims
ROCKER Jimmy Barnes has used the pain of his past to plead with Gold Coast domestic violence perpetrators and victims to seek help, for their own sakes and those of frightened kids.
And in a stinging attack on churches, Barnes has taken a huge swipe at institutions that are sitting on wealth while people starve and live in poverty, or have ignored child abuse in their ranks.
“You know what? (Domestic violence) is a battle that’s been crippling this country, crippling families all over Australia. It’s literally plague proportions,’’ he said yesterday.
Barnes thought the Gold Coast was a beautiful place, but also knew that many of the people who fled here seeking a better life would fail unless they did something serious about the problems they thought they were escaping.
“The thing with domestic violence is it doesn’t matter whether you’re wealthy or you’re poor, if you’re educated or uneducated, black, white, green … it doesn’t matter. It’s happening in all walks of society.
“It’s a shameful thing have to talk about this.’’
Barnes told yesterday of the fear he and his siblings suffered in his troubled childhood in Glasgow and then, after migrating to Australia, his teenage years in the Adelaide suburb of Elizabeth, chronicled in his best-selling book Working Class Boy (published by HarperCollins) that has won the Australian Book Industry Association award for biography of the year.
The Cold Chisel frontman who has also enjoyed a huge solo singing career has taken his book and a show on the road to reveal how and why fear at home amid poverty and near-starvation turned him into a hard-drinking, to
drug-using, tough street-fighting youth.
He will bring his story to the Byron Writers Festival next month, where his sessions include a discussion with muso mate Tex Perkins.
talking,
His next book, Working Class Man, continues his life story from the moment he and Cold Chisel hit the road out of Adelaide.
Barnes said despite the fact he was thrilled with the first
book’s success and the Australia Day honours award he received this year, he found it sad his story had touched so many people.
He said rescuing himself had not been a matter of deciding
one day to break the cycle of drunken violence that had marred his family and not be like his parents — he still loves both, despite the pain — but rather it had taken him years of seeking help and therapy.
He urged violent men to start talking to experts and not clam up.
“There are agencies out there that can help. You can’t sit back and expect to change something that’s as drastic as fear and ignorance and violence without getting help,’’ he said.
“For the victims, you can’t put up with this. People who sit around afraid, a lot of women are too afraid to talk about it, too ashamed to talk about it, don’t want to upset their families, don’t want to break up their families, you can’t have your children being brought up surrounded by this.
“You have to get up, take the risk and leave.
“We can’t have our children being brought up afraid, being brought up traumatised, being brought up beaten and bruised because if we do that to our children, that’s how they’re going to react. They’re going to think that violence is a way to get ahead in the world.’’
In his book, Barnes had wondered why God had not intervened to save him and his brothers and sisters.
“I’m dismissive of organised religion,’’ he said yesterday.
“Look at the amount of abuse in institutions in this country. How can the Catholic Church have all that money and there are so many people starving in the world? How can it be a good thing when they’re telling people not to use contraception?
“That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in spirituality. I still say my prayers. I’m not necessarily saying them to God.
“Whether it’s an affirmation for myself or just whoever’s out there, any help I can get I’m willing to take.’’
Working Class Man will be published by HarperCollins in October.