Young Bradman

22 Beginnings another mature lad that teachers could trust to do something responsibly in public. In February 1925 the district hospital acknowledged a long list of donors including ‘useful voluntary work’ from ‘V Bradman’. Though born in 1904, the 1925/26 season was his first, ‘and he has displayed splendid form so far’, said the Southern Mail , after Victor took eight for 15 against Moss Vale B team. Three older sisters and an older brother, then, set good examples of wanting to do good work, and having confidence. In March 1925, the cricket club ran its annual social in the Empire Theatre, and Don was one of three named men who ‘supplied the extras’. Most intriguing is the Bradman children’s performing in public. Lilian and May for instance played a piano duet – as two of only four named musicians – at Bowral District School’s end of year fair in December 1912. In April 1915, at a school concert in aid of relief for invaded Belgium, Don Bradman sang in a duet, and was encored. Did the Don learn to master his nerves there, before he ever stood on a cricket field? ‘At school, I was just an average sort of boy,’ he wrote; although we can query how many other boys ‘learned to play the piano a little’. Children, most of the time, are not at school. Nearly everyone in Australia can swim, as a way to be cool in summer, ‘but swimming was never in my line’. On the ship to England in 1930, when Bradman had time on his hands, his teammate Alan Fairfax taught him. Nor was Bradman much of a fisherman, though he fished a stream ‘that runs through our paddock at home’. In his 1930s autobiography he told the amusing story of how he hooked an eel and, frightened by the sight, pulled it home to his father, childishly shouting that he had caught a snake. By Farewell to Cricket in 1950, perhaps looking back more fondly but less accurately, Bradman wrote that he ‘loved fishing’ in the nearby creek. At weekends he often walked miles on ‘shooting expeditions’. Rather than wait at home to hear his name over the radio as one of the tourists to England, in January 1930 Bathing pool, Bowral, undated postcard.