Young Bradman

32 School and district years and 27. And in October 1925 when visitors Bundanoon were all out for 27, Bradman retired with 34 out of Bowral’s 94 for two, before Bundanoon were all out again for 59. Even if Bradman had felt like breaking the rule, as the most junior of the team, he could not. Sid Cupitt gave Bradman his first bat. The Sydney Morning Herald sub-editor in December 1930 spotted how important it was, giving it the sub-heading ‘HAPPY BOY WITH FIRST REAL BAT’: It was man’s size, but that did not matter. It was a bat with a splice and not one chopped out of the limb of a gum tree. That bat meant almost everything in the world to me. With a saw my father cut three inches off the bottom and rounded it off at the foot, and I went into the paddock with my prized possession. I played shots at imaginary balls till the light failed. I was happy. The story also made the Bradman narrative because it was so impeccably Australian, showing the good-natured and thrifty teammate, the grateful boy (‘happy’, more than satisfied, notice), and George Bradman the resourceful craftsman. Bradman told Ray Martin in 1996, when Cupitt was long gone, more details that made the gift sound not quite so generous. The bat had broken and Cupitt had no more use for it; George Bradman also had to glue up the cracks. Everyone was giving and taking; Bradman was genuinely glad of the charity because as a boy he was not the equal of the adult. We’re taking it for granted that the adult team found a place for the boy, on merit; even though Bradman was not a club member until the age of 16. Contrast that with some unequal and unfair English village clubs. In May 1936, ‘Double Gloucester’, a columnist in the Dursley Gazette , recalled it was 25 years since the death of WG’s older brother, Dr EM Grace. At his home club of Thornbury near Bristol, even if bowled when batting, EM would knock the stump in again and say, ‘not at Thornbury’. Men of power in England – and not only on the cricket field – could do as they pleased. Would we really like to see those days return? ‘Double Gloucester’ asked. You wonder how helpful a team led by EM Grace would have been to a boy like Bradman. ‘My days at school were completely happy days,’ said Bradman in the Sydney Morning Herald ’s 1930 serial. ‘Besides winning some distinction at cricket, I played for the school football XV, and in events for boys of my age, I won the 100 yards, 220 yards, and the quarter and half mile championships.’ He recalled in old age: ‘Any sport at all, I was in it’: I was reasonably, I wasn’t what you call an academic. I don’t think I was ever cut out to be a Rhodes scholar. In our class I normally always finished third, we had a little girl called Iris Payne, who always came first, we had a boy named Sukie Taylor who came second, and I was always third. We eventually got through to intermediate standard and in the intermediate exam I got two As and six Bs which I thought was a reasonable pass.