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!

Paul gets taken to hospital

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My little brother Paul was a favourite of mine and I would piggyback him everywhere us big fellas went. He was only four or five years old at the time. I’d perch him up on my shoulders and off we’d go – me, Ray and Poey, down to meet up with the Anderson boys who lived a few doors away.

Once everyone had finished making their Shanghai’s, we’d go down to the creek looking for pigeons to shoot and if we were lucky enough to knock one we’d cook him up and have a feed. Didn’t happen very often.

Things had slightly improved somewhat when we lived in Cooladdi as we had a water tap and stove inside the house and wooden floors instead of dirt ones with no tap or stove (as was the case living on the Yumba in Charleville).

With such a large family we didn’t have enough beds for everyone so it was normal for us to share our beds with each other, and Paul would mostly be in mine.

I recall waking up one night and I noticed he wasn’t beside me and that’s when I could hear people moving frantically about the kitchen. Mum was howling like a desperate woman would.

Mr and Mrs Kingdom from next door were there and so I knew straight away that there was something seriously wrong.

Mum and Mrs Kingdom had a falling out some months earlier and for Mrs Kingdom to be in our house offering support and trying to calm Mum, it must’ve been serious. I thought of Paul.

I was too scared to go out and see what was happening so I sat up in bed and tried to listen and that’s when I heard Dad start the car.

I could feel a real sense of urgency and the tone of Mum’s voice was becoming more and more frantic. I could see Bobby through the dim light standing in the hallway that led to the kitchen and I called out to her and asked what was going on and she said, ‘Paul is very sick and they’re rushing him to the hospital in Charleville.’

It was about two o’clock in the morning by the time Mum and Dad had left for Charleville and with no telephone or any other means of communication, we didn’t know if Paul would make it or not.

I believe it was sometime late the next day that Mum rang Mr Carlyle at the local post office and left a message saying that Paul was very lucky to have made it through as he’d gone into convulsions and almost died.

It was a few days later when Mum and Dad returned back home with Paul. I was so relieved to see him better, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t mind sharing my bed with my little sookie brother.