AUSTRALIA
The Courier
[with video performance of “99 Candles in Ballarat”]
Alicia Thomas
@aliciajthomas
25 Oct 2016
In 1973 Ian Whitehead was a young man boarding in Ballarat.
What occurred around him at the time could only be described as a nightmare.
What Ian didn’t know about those nightmares was that his school friends were part of them.
They were victims at the hands of a clergy child sex abuse scandal that would not fully be understood until almost half a century later.
But Ian can understand, he was a victim himself while a student at St Kevin’s College in Toorak in 1972.
He later learnt of the stories from his friends, while others he will never know.
But more than 40 years on he returned to Ballarat for one very particular reason.
That reason was to film a videoclip for his new song “99 Candles in Ballarat”.
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