For the first time, Australian rock legend Jimmy Barnes, who fronted iconic rock band Cold Chisel, will be visiting Westfield Penrith for a meet and greet to launch his new reveal all book.
The book Working Class Boy is a memoir of Barnes’ traumatic and violent childhood. It will be launched at the plaza on Thursday September 22 from 4pm outside Dymocks at Westfield Penrith.
Fans can meet Barnsey and have their book signed when they purchase Working Class Boy from Dymocks.
Barnes said of writing the book: "I always thought I was brave. But writing the book I think I've discovered courage. I always thought I could be brave and charge at things and smash 'em and walk away, but it takes courage to sit and look at things and say, this is what I am, how do I fix it? How do I live with it?"
Born in Glasgow in 1956 to Jim and Dorothy (Dot) Swan, his earliest years were spent on the toughest streets of Scotland where violence and alcoholism were badges of pride. These traditions continued in the Swan family – Jim was also a semi-pro boxer – when the family emigrated to Adelaide, the situation grew steadily worse.
"Where I grew up there were times when we didn't have anything to eat," Barnes says. "My mum would be crying wondering how she could feed us. My dad would be drunk somewhere."
The marriage fell apart and the family were subsumed by poverty, drink, bitterness and violence. Eventually Dot left the family home. Unable to cope with six kids, life was increasingly desperate until Dot took the kids to live with her second husband Reg Barnes. Jimmy was not yet in high school.
Barnes had stored all this away and suddenly the stories came flooding back.
“If you have a wound and you cover it up its going to fester. You've got to open it up and give it air, so all those wounds from my childhood and all the things that my parents had suffered all got exposed to the air.”
- Sydney Morning Herald