Donald Bradman

You

can't tell youngsters today of the attraction of the fellow. I mean, business used to stop in the town when Bradman was playing and likely to go in [to bat]--all the offices closed, the shops closed; everybody went up to see him play." Thus Bill Bowes, the Yorkshire fast bowler, speaking on the 50th anniversary of England's notorious "bodyline" tour of Australia in 1932-33. Bowes, of course, was speaking about an English town in the 1930s. Bradman's impact on the Australia of that era was even more extraordinary. Not only would businesses shut down in towns and cities where he was playing, but crowds would gather in front of the great scoreboards erected in the cities where he was not playing, and cheer every time a Bradman run was marked up.

In those days they needed something to cheer about. The Depression hit Australia, a primary producer, harder than it hit the industrialized countries of the northern hemisphere. At its peak, unemployment among male heads of household reached well over 25%. Moreover, Britain, the mother country, refused to provide the funds needed for even minimal social welfare. Finally, the sores opened by World War I and the conscription referendums had still not healed. The Diggers who had returned from the war were contemptuous of those who had stayed behind, and the sectarian nature of the dispute made the consequent urban violence all the more venomous. Australia badly needed a unifying force, and one which was successful on an international stage. It was Bradman, with his cricketing genius, who provided it.

The story was much the same after World War II. Australia emerged from that war with a sense of unease. It had become obvious that Britain could no longer provide reliable security--the humiliating fall of Singapore in early 1942 had shown that. On the other hand, Australians were not ready to accept what in the end became obvious--that their country would have to glide away from Britain and look to the U.S. for support and protection. Indeed, the process is still not complete, as the current debate about the republic shows. After the war, Australia badly needed a unifying force, and again it was Bradman, at the end of his career, who provided it. Without a doubt, the Australian tour of England in 1948 helped give an unsettled nation a sense of confidence about its future, wherever it might lie.

The fact that Bradman, a cricketer, could be cast in this iconic role says as much about Australia as it does about Bradman. But sport has always been a central feature--perhaps the one central feature--of the Australian polity, binding together disparate and geographically separated social groups. It sometimes seems to the outsider that Australia only becomes a truly national entity when the national team is competing against another country. Nowadays, Australia competes successfully at many sports. In Bradman's day there was only one that mattered: cricket.

It would be wrong to assume that Bradman particularly enjoyed the role in which he was cast, or, indeed, that it made him rich. On the contrary, in his playing days there were no millionaire sportsmen, and, until later in his career, money was a fairly constant worry. He also disliked the attention he attracted from the press. It excited the jealousy of his team mates. Furthermore, there were businessmen of little scruple who set out to use him to their own advantage.

Donald George Bradman was born in 1908 in the dusty inland village of Cootamundra, New South Wales. His parents soon moved to the small town of Bowral, nearer to Sydney. His childhood was a rather lonely one--he entertained himself by throwing a golf ball against the brick base of a water tank and trying to hit it with a cricket stump as it fizzed back at him (in fact, he rarely missed it). Bradman left school at age 14 and, a few years later, moved to Sydney. It was only a matter of time before the young man played for New South Wales and then, in 1928-29, his first Test matches against England.