All stand up comics draw their inspiration from somewhere. That’s what makes them so interesting. Dave Grant faced his challenges right from his early days, his transformation from boy to man was under very difficult circumstances. Many of those trials were captured in his stage show – MAN The MYTH.
Whilst we would never be able to characterize and recount every moment of his life, we are thankful that Dave was able to express a lot of his life in his comedy. Here is an insight to the some of the obstacles he overcame during his life.
Dave Grant was born in Govern, Scotland on January 22nd 1959. Dave’s mother Esther was Scottish/Swiss decent and Dave’s dad Doug was Australian of Irish/Portuguese decent. Dave left Glasgow age 4 bound for Australia on the ‘SS Canberra’ arriving in Melbourne. Dave remained on a British Passport all his life because to access an Australia Passport he would have to swear allegiance to the Queen. He would never re-visit the land of his birth. He always considered himself truly Australian.
The Grant family, which consisted of siblings Pamela, Barbara, David and Elaine would eventually settle in the new immigrant estate of Doveton, some 35km from the center of Melbourne.
Three more new siblings would join the family Albert, Roxanne and Karen to make seven Grant children in total. Comedians always draw on the adversity that they have experienced in their lives and this was no exception for Dave. Life was tough in the Grant household with 7 mouths to feed and limited funds. Many a time the children went with out school lunches or breakfast.
The children grew to be resourceful. Elaine remembers her and Dave taking the shillings out of the local fountain in front of the Catholic Church, which was cleared regularly, to be given to the ‘poor people’.
When the family could no longer manage fees for the local catholic school, they were asked to leave. The kids relocated complete with Catholic School uniforms to the local public school. Not only was this character building for Dave, this would begin Dave’s lifelong dislike of the Catholic Church for their lack of compassion and understanding.
Things descended into chaos when Dave was 12 years of age as Doug departed the family, leaving Esther to raise the seven children. When Dave scored a job unloading vegetable trucks before school at the local Dandenong market, it enabled him to ‘borrow’ much needed fresh food for the family’s dinner table – careful to only take what was needed and not draw attention. Following the milk truck around was another source of opportunity to supply fresh milk particularly for his younger siblings.
Its fair to say that Dave was a troubled young boy, always dreaming of the time he would escape Doveton and all the desperation it represented. Despite the situation, Dave was a popular young bloke particularly with his peers and the girls. His sisters tell many stories of Dave dating their friends and girls knocking on the door at all hours of the night looking for him! His time as a skinhead would be one of the many highlights that Dave would experience. Pamela recalls at the height of his skinhead period, complete with trademark button up cardigan, driving her wedding car in 1975 at age 16.
Despite scrapes with the local constabulary Dave managed to stay out of any major trouble, or maybe he was just fortunate not to get caught! Many of the adventures from around this time were recounted in MAN The MYTH, including scaling the outside of a moving train (the Train Game) or performing a running jump from the one roof top to another across the top of the main street of Dandenong. Whatever it was, it involved risk and adrenalin.
Dave went from catholic school to public school, to Doveton High where he finished year 10 began year 11 but decided it wasn’t for him. This was something that Dave regretted immensely.
Dave held several jobs during this time, selling insurance, running gymnasiums and early on as a grave digger at Springvale Cemetery, where he recalled being dared by his fellow older grave diggers to jump in to a freshly dug grave and count to 100. Of course Dave was not one to let easy money go begging and despite his fears managed to jump in the open grave. On beginning to count Dave heard the digger start up. Hence he made record time getting out of that grave!
Having left home at 17, when the opportunity to travel to Perth with a group of friends came in 1980, Dave jumped at the chance to get out of Doveton and embraced the change of scenery. They drove across the Nullabour to arrive in Perth. Shortly after arriving Dave met Lisa and they settled in to life together. When they found out that Lisa was pregnant, they made a difficult decision to adopt Marieke out to loving parents, who could provide better for her, something they weren’t in a position to do themselves, being so young. This decision would haunt Dave until his reuniting with Marieke when she turned 17 years old.
Dave’s time in Perth saw him turn his hand to learning the discipline of Karate complemented by taking on hotel security in the center of Perth nightlife as a profession.
On his return to Melbourne in 1982, Dave took turns living with both his siblings Pamela and Barbara.
It was during this time that Dave’s interest began to grow in watching comedy. His first foray into comedy was writing jokes for comics including Russell Gilbert. Dave watched and learnt from some of the best comics Melbourne had to offer. He particularly admired the likes of Richard Stubbs and Cowboy Mark Neale.
Dave’s first gig was at Mulchays Bar & Grill in North Melbourne, frequented by wharfies, Painters & Dockers and Prostitutes. Fellow comic Dave O’Neil remembered that first time: “Dave Grant got up to do his first gig. Now in those days he was quite an imposing character. It was 1990, he had on a long coat, he had like a sharpie hair hangover that says ‘I used to be a sharpie and cant really get over it, I’ve got the tails and spiky hair!’ He always had of a bit of growth and the big boots and he walked on stage grabbed the mike and went: “Everyone lay on the floor! – Sorry day job!” Yeah in a room full of wharfies, Painters & Dockers he pretended to be an armed robber!
Dave met his partner Karen on a Hen’s Night bus trip where he was the comic host. These bus nights were popular with comics in Melbourne in the 90’s primarily as an opportunity for comics to run new material on captivated pissed women!
Dave and Karen went on their first date a week later, which unbeknown to Karen happened to be Dave’s 34th birthday. Their first child Madeleine was born in 1995 and Spencer was to follow in 1999.
