It was because of Bowral’s ‘freedom and happiness’ that Sir Donald Bradman chose to have his ashes scattered in the town.
John Bradman told Wednesday’s thanksgiving service his father’s homecoming would be complete when his ashes are sprinkled in a secret location sometime in the next few weeks.
He remarked Bowral gave Sir Donald a sense of solace from the fame that “imprisoned” him.
“He turned more and more to this place as a sense of his life that he hadn’t experienced for 70 years,” Mr Bradman told the 600 or so people who turned out to pay homage to his father.
“It’s for that reason, he wanted his ashes to come back here.”
He told the many relatives, sporting identities and residents that had gathered under brilliant autumn sunshine at the oval named after his father that Sir Donald “loved” Bowral.
The Don was four years old when his carpenter father moved the family to Bowral.
He grew up and attended school here, hunted eels, possums and opposition bowlers, before being drawn to the city about 20 years later.
“It was a place of great freedom, great happiness,” Mr Bradman said.
“It was an uncomplicated place and he told me many stories.
“One of them was about lighting the gas lamps from the back of a horse, which if you remembered, for someone terrified of horses, he was quite proud of it.
“He used to go fishing in the creek for eels, he told me about the time he went possum shooting with his father and they were walking carefully backwards about this tree when his father fell ...
“I won’t tell my father’s exact phrase ... but backwards over a cow and the cow jumped up, the gun went off and people went in all directions!
“There were many many stories, he loved this place and after that first 20 years of freedom things really descended on him.
“He did play for fun and when he started playing, even at the highest level and in a sense it was deadly serious, it was still for fun.
“1932 changed that and he felt, I think, he had entered a war zone. It was never the same again.
“That change, along with the intensity of his fame, in a sense turned him into a prisoner of his
fame and he lived with that for the rest of his life ... dealing with it, I think, with enormously good grace and enormous generosity.”
Mr Bradman spoke eloquently but briefly, praising those who turned out to celebrate his dad’s life and especially thanking Bradman Foundation director Richard Mulvaney.
“He is a very special friend to us, and he’s helped enormously in dealing with this situation,” he said.
Mr Bradman said his father’s ashes are currently lying happily in a bank vault, fitting “very neatly in the space available which is correct for him”.
“ThereR 17;s been some speculation about this, which is rather unseemly,” he said.
“I’ve tried to get a mix in all of this between the public and the private and it’s the same with his ashes.
“It will be publicly known what’s happening but it will be done privately and you’ll be informed afterwards.
“So the ashes will come back to Bowral at some time. They will be scattered here somewhere. There will be appropriate public witnesses because there is this sense in which he is inescapably public.”
“I would be grateful if there be no further speculation about that matter.”
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