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Roger Montgomery was born in North London during the war (the Second World War) growing up on one of the council estates of outer London (a real school of hard knocks).
Leaving high school at fifteen and after a short and useless stint at Hornsey Art College he worked as a sales assistant in a large department store ("are you free, Mr Montgomery"), a travelling fruit and vegie seller operating out of Spitalfields Fruit market ("Get yer luverly onions 'ere"), and finally a fork lift driver.
It was in the mid sixties, following a long dreamt dream when he emigrated to Australia as a Ten Pound Tourist.
Upon arrival Roger worked his way up, down and around the east and south coast, from Newcastle to Adelaide, driving trucks, cranes and forklifts, cotton chipping, fruit picking, pre-stressing and being stressed out by concrete beams, the list is long and goes on and on, whilst all the time and at the same time playing music and learning how to be a fair dinkum Australian, no worries.
He finally turned up in Western Australia with a with a wife and an eighteen month old son (who now plays guitar with him in the Dingo's Breakfast ...God is good! ) clutching a certificate of naturalisation and an acute insight into the Australian condition.
Roger now lives somewhere in North Fremantle, where he works full on at his writing and music and part time as the co-ordinator of the fine woodworking shop at Rocky Bay.
He has played in many bands and groups on his travels, too many to mention here, highlights were the Montgomery Folk, Abbaration and the Travelling People (East Coast) and in the West, Australian Bite, Terror Australis , the Mucky Duck Bush Band and of course, his great group love, the Dingo's Breakfast.
He also works the traps with Jon Doust, well known Perth comedian, performing under the name of the "Bruce Brothers", telling yarns and poems, bunging on about Australia and Australians, and he and Peter Capp (thrice winner of the W.A. Bush Poetry and the Yarn-spinning Championships) spruik on in the guise of (Oh no, it's those )Two Bloody Poets Again !
As anyone who has seen Roger perform can tell you, he is an entertaining and funny speaker with a knack of getting straight to the heart of matters that most of us would prefer to gloss over. In recent years he has turned this gift to the art of writing and performing his very own brand of highly irreverent verse, songs and yarns, some of which he performs with the band. He has a recording of some of these offerings on a C.D, a companion to his performance poetry book, both entitled Kicking Against the Pricks These are available by contacting Roger or by using the online facilities .
Within the context of the Dingo's Breakfast, Roger can be seen and heard playing an assortment of guitars, a banjo (badly), harmonicas, tin whistles, a largerphone and occasionally a bodhran. he sings, he calls dances, spruiks poetry and yarns and is a compere beyond compare also.
© 2010
Created by TwoBob Productions