Shirley was born on 29 November 1928 in Dubbo, NSW. Her father, Glanville Crawford Martyn, had served in WWI in France (27th Field Artillery), and as a returned servicemen in the lead-up to the Great Depression had little in the way of work opportunities. As a highly accomplished self-taught pianist, he had an important role in the Army as part of his unit’s concert party, and later played the piano for the silent movies. The arrival of the talkies and the advent of the Great Depression meant he had to travel to find work. He married Shirley’s mother, Anne Jane Walker Woods, in 1927, and they moved to Dubbo, in central NSW, where Glan took work playing the piano for the silent movies and driving a bus. Shirley was born here, in their house in Nancarrow Street. A year later they were back in Sydney, where they opened a grocery shop.
Shirley grew up in Fairfield, Ashfield and Guildford. She learned touch-typing at school (with a bib tied from her neck to the typewriter so she couldn’t see the keys), and, armed with this skill and shorthand (learned later at college), she left school at 16 and found work at the Mercantile Mutual Insurance Company as a stenographer. Her references show that she was very skilled.
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She met George in either of two ways. According to her brother Robert “Bob” Crawford Martyn, they met at Narrabeen campground. The Martyn family used to spend summer camping at Narrabeen, sleeping in the big family tent, cooking over a camp stove and showering from a kerosene tin of water heated over a fire. Shirley commuted to work by bus and ferry. Fred Stevens and his second wife, Nance (née Nancy Alumward Sim), had moved to Sydney for Fred to take up a senior role with the Civil Aviation Authority, and had bought a house at 83 Bangor Street, Guildford, one street away from Shirley’s home at 83 Berwick Street. They decided to camp at Narrabeen, where Glan and Anne met Fred and Nance by chance. George had come to visit Fred and Nance, and he met Shirley. He quickly endeared himself to the Martyn family by spending time with Bob, then a little boy, teaching him to swim. The fact that the two families lived only 100 m apart was a bonus.
According to Shirley’s memoirs, however, they met in Guildford:
“Our meeting was [what] you would call out of the ordinary. Coming home from the train, the temperature was cool, getting dark, and as I turned the corner I saw my Dad’s car parked askew in the gutter instead of it being in the garage. A tragedy had occurred; the car should have been in the garage.
“I went into the house to see Mum crying and Dad in shock—a lad aged 16 ran into the car on his motorbike. As Dad was turning the corner, the bike went under the car, and the lad was thrown onto the footpath. The police came; so did the neighbours. The boy died. Dad had to go to court, but he was not charged.
“George happened to be at his father’s (Fred’s) home [in the next street]. He quickly went to the scene. So did the local policeman, who stood up for Dad. No charges were made.”
Later, Fred sent George to the Martyn home to see how Glan was feeling, and that’s when George and Shirley got to know each other. Perhaps both stories are true.
Shirley and George married only a year later, but they married twice: first at a civil ceremony at the Registrar’s Office so they qualified for Married Quarters at Jervis Bay before George went back to sea; second nearly a year later at church for all the family and friends to attend. They honeymooned on Lord Howe Island when the only way to get there was to catch the flying boat from Rose Bay, on Sydney Harbour, and there was only one vehicle (a ute) on the island.
Shirley became George’s labourer (called “Tom”) when they built their first house (22 Owen Street, Huskisson). Matthew was born in 1960. George left the Royal Australian Navy in 1961. Jenny was born in 1962. George joined IBM and rose through the ranks. Shirley dutifully followed him from Sydney to Melbourne to Sydney to Melbourne to Wellington (NZ) to Sydney. In “retirement” (he retired four times), George continued renovating houses, and they moved multiple times (2 houses in Melbourne, 3 houses in Greenwich, Sydney, 2 houses in Vincentia, NSW, and 2 houses in Berowra Heights, Sydney). When they finally moved into a nursing home in 2011, they still had removalists’ boxes from Melbourne.
Shirley spent her final 8 years in a nursing home in Wahroonga, Sydney, slowly declining with vascular dementia. She died on 10 July 2018.
Shirley and George had two children: Matthew Lindsay Stevens (born 1960) and Jennifer Rosalie (née Stevens) Hutchinson (born 1962).
The following link to Shirley’s life leads to many photographs, certificates, legal documents, a voice recording, correspondence and biographical material.