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!

My mother and religion

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My mother is a Kamilaroi woman from New South Wales and she spent her younger years growing up on the Moree mission.

Back in those early days of mission life it was normal practice for religious groups to teach the Bible to whoever wanted to attend their gatherings and my mother was one. She always saw the value of a good religious upbringing and tried desperately to have her own children gain some knowledge of what the Bible offered.

In Cambooya our friends the Aisthorpes, who were a very strong Catholic family, would attended church every Sunday or whenever there was a service, so naturally Mum thought it was a good idea for us to go along to church with them.

Every Sunday morning for about six weeks us older kids, under much protesting, would be made go to church, but on one particular day Ray and I decided we’d had enough of the kneeling down on hard wooden boards and listening to stories that didn’t make much sense and that’s when we made our escape down to the creek.

‘Don’t tell Mum,’ were our instructions to Poey, our other brother, and he would always promise not to if we saved him a few draws from our cigarette after church. Poey didn’t mind going to church and was made an ‘Alter boy’ but he said he hated when they took up the collection and it revealed that the Martin family’s contribution was a mere fifty cents.

My mother is ninety-years old now and living with me and Poey in Oakey Queensland and sometimes we reminisce about the old days and I think to myself, as a non-religious person, what a crazy mixed-up world it would be without religion and how important it is for people to seek salvation through the teachings of the church.

I am so honoured and privileged that I have sufficient skills to write something about my dear mother and it’s only through the sacrifices she made for us that I am able to do so.
She would always say to us kids, if you don’t have an education you have nothing. And, it’s through my limited education that I am fortunate enough to now write about her.

Where does one begin to write about the person so dear to your heart and the sole reason for your existence?

So many sacrifices, so much pain and suffering, so many heartaches and of course the countless moments of joy and happiness. And you know, what I’m sure she would do it all over again if it wasn’t for the tragic loss of some family members in that horrific car accident. The accident that would claim the lives of her beloved husband, daughter and grandson and an unborn grandchild.

There are many sides to Mum and nobody knows them better than me and I believe that is the reason we argue so much.

‘Mum, where does your father come from?’ was a question I asked whilst trying to write something about him.

I was hoping to gain some knowledge and understanding of his life, so that I could pass on to everyone.

‘You tell me,’ was her reply. We had an argument the previous evening over another topic I was writing about and she was still angry with me and that’s the reason for her reply and the reason there is very little written about her parents.

Mum would be sitting at her Singer sewing machine peddling away and chatting to one of her friends most afternoons when I returned home after school.

She would be sewing clothes for us kids to wear and of course they’d be made two sizes too big for us just so we could grow into them. Life on the Camp wasn’t all that easy and people would do what they had to do to exist and Mum was no exception. I really don’t know how she did it but she did. Mum had a job up town, which was about three kilometres away, cleaning at Dunn’s butchery and every day she would somehow push the stroller with big fat baby Poey sitting in it and dragging Ray along at the same time and then once she got there, she’d spent hours mopping and cleaning floors for very little pay. It’s no wonder she has arthritis in the hands and hips today. Zona Merle, ‘the Moree girl’, I would often jokingly say to her.