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!

The Dentist

By

It would happen about every twelve months or so that the government dentist would visit the regional schools to conduct a much-needed check on the kids dental health and Cooladdi would be on the list. I remember my first visit to a dentist was when he actually came to our school I was about nine years old then. The school was built up high and had steps at both the front and back entrance with small rooms that you would walk through before entering the main classroom. The front room was where the dentist would set up his equipment and one noticeable piece of this was a huge pot of hot boiling water that was used to sterilise his instruments. My first time seeing the dentist was fairly straight forward, that I remember, with no lasting impact on my mental wellbeing. The next time I saw the dentist it was a few years later and one with a very different outcome than the previous, and also one that I’ll never forget.

They were setup in a railway carriage across from our house and it looked more modern than the one at the school so I was reasonably happy just to line up and wait my turn as most kids were except for John Leslie who looked a bit worried.

It was finally my turn to see him so up the steps I climbed and sat myself down where I was directed by the assistant. About an hour later he was done drilling and pulling and screwing my mouth around, with nothing to ease the pain, and all I remember when he’d finished a big teardrop rolled down my cheek and one of the assistants had the nerve to ask if it hurt.

From memory I think I had five or more fillings that day… Dental hygiene wasn’t one of our family’s strong points during this period as we didn’t have a toothbrush or anything to clean our teeth with, and the boiled lollies from the shop didn’t help much.

Anyhow, it was John’s turn in the chair and when the assistant called his name he was nowhere to be found. I knew he was scared and he told me that he wasn’t going to see the dentist and if they tried to make him, he would run away. After a quick search around the carriages nobody was able to find him and that’s when someone spotted him frantically heading towards the creek.

One of the mothers and an assistant ran off after him but failed to catch him as he had a bigger start on them.

He returned home later in the evening when he thought it was safe enough to return and luckily for him it was the last day of the dentist’s visit and much to John’s delight.