Young Bradman

52 First grade The thought of leaving home and all its happy associations hurt. My work was completely pleasant; I could have desired no more generous or considerate master; but, whatever the cost, I was determined to make the plunge. Bradman however held back, as Mr Westbrook his employer, ‘far from offering any objection … encouraged me’. Bradman did not give any specifics, such as whether Mr Westbrook was paying him for Saturday, which might explain why the 30 shillings more than covered his travelling costs. Perhaps Westbrook offered the prospect of what he later gave Bradman; a place in the downtown Sydney office that Westbrook started. Bradman and Westbrook were among subscribers in a company formed in September 1927. The timing of Bradman’s move to Sydney depended on business at the Sydney end, and Bradman having enough experience of work, rather than what suited his cricket career. As Bradman understood that the ‘plunge’ was a watershed in his life – his equivalent of Dick Whittington setting off for London with a bundle on a stick – it’s worth speculating how much of a risk Bradman was taking. Not moving to Sydney, and the weary journeys, were a risk too, if they made him less fresh for his cricket. What were Bradman’s ambitions, aged 18 and a half, in that summer of 1926/27, as he began making his way in Sydney? To play for Australia, let’s assume; or put another way, to be like Johnny Taylor or Charlie Macartney, those men he had seen in 1921. To give himself the best chance, he not only had to be physically in Sydney, but making a good enough living to give his best on the cricket field on Saturday afternoons. Besides learning in first grade on the field, he could gather ideas off the field about how to combine cricket and paid work. Roughly, he would have found two options. A trade or profession with fixed hours paid well enough and left weekends free, such as doctors and teachers. The training took years and Bradman had not chosen that way anyway. He What Bradman would have seen once he stepped out of Sydney Central station.