Barratt Waugh is a talented young Englishman who is supporting Sheena Crouch and Marty Rhone on their ’Cliff and Dusty’  tour but who will no doubt be doing some solo touring in the near future. Barratt is the singing sensation discovered in a shopping centre talent show in Northern England and brought to the wider attention of audiences by Sir Cliff Richard himself.

Sir Cliff recognised Barratt’s amazing voice and has been a mentor to Barratt.  But Barratt is more than a beautiful voice; he has a serious commitment to addressing and going a way to eliminate what is an increasing concern in our communities the problem of bullying.

Barratt has had his own experience of being bullied at school and has taken the time to visit over a hundred schools in England for the UK organisation ‘ABC’ which aims to solve bullying by getting to the real cause.

As Barratt noted many young people are ill equipped and not mature enough to handle the problem of bullying. Often people are afraid to confront those that bully in fear that in doing so could cause adverse effects.

Barratt, even after his own experience is able to seek answers by looking at the plight of those that bully. As he says, the bully is often a person with problems in their own life that they need to ‘block out’. The result is bullying but the really important thing to remember is often bullies believe once the teasing is over for the day and indeed it can happen almost every day as it did in Barratt’s case that life can just pick up and resume as normal.

People like Barratt, in the public eye and admired by young people can explain that the person being bullied lives with the fear and the consequences of bullying every day and there is no respite. The good news is that Barratt’s crusade to make people aware of this is working. He has had people come up to him and admit they have bullied and until he explained it they did not understand the repercussions of their teasing. Congratulations to Barratt and ABC and everyone else who is working to make life much more pleasant especially for school children who have suffered bullying.

On a very fortunate note on this Friday the thirteenth I learned that Barratt has strong tie to Tasmania with friends living here and spent two months in Hobart last year, enjoys fishing at Bruny Island and is almost an adopted son of our state. Barratt like so many others loves the beauty of our island so much so he decided to film his video clip for a cover of the beautiful song ‘A Time for Us’ best known from Zefferellli’s film version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in Tasmania’s glorious Wineglass Bay.

You can view the clip at Barratt’s official website http://www.barrattwaugh.org/ and the album ’I Love you, Goodbye’ is available at his website and at JB Hi Fi online https://www.jbhifionline.com.au/music/pop-rock/i-love-you-goodbye/581833.

The good news for Tasmania is that Barratt is so enamoured of our state he plans to bring his own tour here possibly at the end of the year.

Thanks to Barratt for taking the time to have a chat and best of luck for the rest of the tour and looking forward to his solo tour later in the year.