Garry Sonny Martin

My name’s Garry Martin, but most people know me as Sonny.

Welcome to my Blog! I will be updating this page with new stories from time to time. 

I write stories about my childhood growing up in western Queensland to show the next generations what it was like growing up as a Blackfulla in the 1950s and 1960s.

I write these stories with the help of my daughter, Angie Faye Martin, to preserve memories of the past for future generations. Above all, I hope my granddaughters – Lailah and Ruby – find joy and meaningful connections in these stories.

I started documenting my childhood when I was in Oakey with my brother, Owen (Poe), and my mother, Zona Martin née Leslie. It was a quiet and nostalgic time for me – I finally felt time and space to really reflect on the past. My daughter was calling frequently from Melbourne during the Covid lockdowns and wanting information about the past for her debut novel, Melaleuca. She was particularly interested in stories from the yumba and how life was back then.

I hope you enjoy these yarns, have a laugh and remember our loved ones. There’ll be more coming soon!

Clutch Slip

By

When I started learning how to drive cars, I would do anything to get behind the wheel and practice.

Auntie Leena Mitchell and her partner had an old FJ Holden Ute and I would pester her to let me reverse it in and out of the yard before the men knocked off work (as Kelvin most likely wouldn’t let me).

This one day, I was feeling pretty good as I hopped in behind the steering wheel. I was tall enough to look out over it and there was no problem driving the car forward, but to reverse, I had to open the door and look behind me so I could see where I was going.

‘Are ya right?’ I’d yell to the boys in the back before taking off and they’d all scream back in unison, ‘Yeah, bore it into ‘er,’ and slowly releasing the clutch off we’d go, first forward and then back.

Going forward was easy, but going backwards was a little more difficult, and as I opened the door to start reversing my foot slipped slightly off the clutch pedal and I took off rather suddenly.

‘Stop, stop!’ they were yelling out to me, so I slammed my foot on the brakes, but it was too late as Paul went flying over the hood of the car and onto the bonnet.

I jumped out and ran around to see what happened and by this time he had fallen from the bonnet onto the ground and was lying there bawling his eyes out.

Luckily there was nothing seriously wrong with him, just a bit of skin knocked off, more in shock then anything.

How it happened, I was reversing so quickly, because of the clutch incident, he didn’t have enough time to duck under Aunt’s clothes line like the other boys, instead his neck got caught up under the wire and the only thing he could do was to hold onto it and as the car moved backwards that’s when he was dragged out.

Once we dusted him off and he stopped crying I threw him back into the car, not in the back though – in the front with me and off we’d go again.