by Jacob Round and Flick Ruby

Sonia English starts work at 4.00 am to have all the bread, pies and goodies we enjoy from the Tilba Bakery ready when it opens at 8.00 am. The tables were all full when we went to see her, so we had to wait for many scones, roast beef and gravy rolls, mushroom pies and muffins to be washed down with coffee by customers before we could sit down.

Many moons ago, Sonia’s family migrated from Italy. After working on the Snowy Mountains Scheme, they settled in Narooma and opened the first takeaway shop, selling fish and chips, souvlaki and Italian food. ‘I spent 20 years living in Sydney, but I didn’t want my kids growing up in a city, so we came back down here. We stay because of the peace, my cows and animals, the wildlife and I love people down here too. Pick a beach and see no people on it. Cobargo is one of my favourite spots on earth and I love Tilba as well.’

Pre-COVID Sonia was offered a job by the then-owner of the Tilba Bakery. ‘She kept saying come and work for me. My uncle ran a bakery in Corryong for 40 odd years. My step-mother grew up in a bakery, her father was a baker in England. I felt surrounded by bakers, so I did go and work full time. My family run La Bocca in Narooma and I spent 30 years working evenings with them, so I know how to work. Alfie, the original owner of the bakery, took it back over and came and said to me, “Sonia, do you want to take the bakery on?” I said I’d love to!’

Some local people didn’t want to see Tilba without a bakery, so they supported Sonia financially to take on the business. ‘I’ve had a lot of local support from beautiful people to get me in here. Very good community. People were quite keen to get me in and they all helped me out. Alfie came in and taught me everything from scratch. Everything I have learned, I owe to Alfie. He’s taught me all my pastries – base, puff, choux and sweet crust pastry. He still comes in nearly every morning to check on me, see how I’m going and if I need help. He asks me, “What do you want to do next? What do you want to learn next?”’

The pies are the top seller at the bakery. ‘The pie fillings are my own creations. That’s what we’re famous for. My chicken and leek are the best sellers, followed by the steak and mushroom. Thanks to the success of the Fungi Feastival, and the lobbying by Fiona Kotvois and Annette Kennewell, I’m creating a mushroom pie for vegetarians, and I will do a vegan one too. My son is growing lion’s mane mushrooms, so I’ll work them in too.’

Sonia’s favourite thing to create at the bakery is the bread. ‘Everything is made by hand in this bakery, and the bread is old school. I hand turn it and the only preservative in it is a bit of salt. A lot of loyal customers send their kids in to get their bread from me because it’s the only bread they want.’

Tilba was absolutely pumping this Christmas, one of the busiest seasons Sonia has ever seen. The shortest day she worked was 14 hours, with 18-hour days becoming normal. ‘I did get very weary, and I thought, how am I going to do this? But I kept going. And it still hasn’t died down. Over Christmas the butcher told me I was going through between 100 and 150 kilos of meat a week! The children have gone back to school but now the grey nomads are coming through in numbers. It will quieten down after Easter and the hardest thing about that is not having work for my staff. We have a lot of tradies in the early morning and cheese factory workers come for lunch. All of the locals in town enjoy our pies and salad rolls, and I’m getting a lot of demand that our hot beef gravy rolls become a permanent item.’

Tilba is seeing a lot of changes. We asked Sonia what her vision of a really successful, thriving Tilba would be. ‘It would be great if we had no AirBnBs in the main street. I would love the shop-front buildings to remain shop fronts. It’s hard to see shops closing down. We’ve got a beautiful bookstore coming very soon just two doors down from the tattoo shop. Philippa at the Tilba Teapot will be opening again soon and I can’t wait. We share the love in Tilba.’

You can listen to a longer interview with Sonia in this month’s Triangle podcast.