Stan's new chapter ‘MY MUM SAVED MY LIFE'

The singer and his mother speak candidly about his traumatic childhood and their heartbreaking double cancer diagnosis

- Sebastian Van Der Zwan

Singer Stan Walker’s autobiography is full of devastating childhood memories, from trying to kill himself with a kitchen knife at the age of three, to the brutal beatings he received at the hands of his father, often using household items such as an iron, a vacuum cleaner and a set of golf clubs.

But the most horrific revelation is that at just eight years old, Stan was raped almost every day, over a period of nine months, by an older male cousin. It’s a parent’s worst nightmare – and reading about it brought it all back for his mother April, who only learnt about the sexual assault years later, when Stan told her at age 16.

“It took me right back to step one – I had a bit of a cry,” confesses April, 56, Zooming into our interview with Stan from her home in Melbourne. “I’d always known there was something not very nice about that fella, but when my son told me he’d been touched by another boy, I freaked out. It shouldn’t have been swept under the carpet.”

She and Stan’s father Ross arranged to confront the rapist near Byron Bay, where they lived at the time. April recalls, “He had booze on him. He’d been drinking since the night before. I just wanted to smack him in the head, but my husband, who’s usually the psycho, stopped me. He held me back. I was like, ‘What are you doing?!’ But he said, ‘No, baby, this is not the way we handle it.’ He gets wise now and again, my husband.”