The effect of Sir Donald Bradman’s fame has filtered down through the family tree. Now, for the first time, members of the notoriously private family have spoken about how the spotlight has influenced their lives.
Throughout the world’s greatest Test batsman’s life, he shunned most media requests and denounced the hero-worshipping which came with his fame.
“Some people are fascinated by fame and it just draws people to be part of it, and there’s absolutely nobody who ever lived who could enjoy that process less than my dad,” his son John said.
This distaste for the public gaze is a characteristic that has trickled through subsequent generations.
John Bradman was deeply affected by the relentless attention paid to him as son of ‘The Don’.
“When people would come up to him as a child quite often the first question would be, ‘and are you going to be a sportsman like your dad when you grow up?’,” John’s daughter Greta Bradman said.
John decided the best way to cope with the associated fame was to change his name.
“[It wasn’t] to pretend I was somebody other than who I was but simply to say ‘people, please give me a break’,” John told Australian Story.
In his early 30s John Bradman became John Bradsen, a pun on the ‘son of Bradman’ with a nod to Norway, where he had spent some time as a young man.
“John felt he was not his own person, that people saw him as Don Bradman’s son, and it was crushing him,” John’s former wife and Greta’s mother Judith Bradsen said.
According to Ms Bradsen, it worked.
“People did not know. I did not ever, ever get a Bradman question all through the time I was teaching as Bradsen,” she said.
Even though he raised the possibility of a name change with his father when he was 18, John said it was a tough decision to make, as he knew Sir Donald would find it difficult.
“My father wrote some letters to a friend in which he expressed his anguish over my changing my name which reflected the fact that it must have been difficult for him,” he said.
Next generation steps into the limelight
Greta Bradman, The Don’s granddaughter and John’s daughter, is now a soprano singer and on the cusp of international stardom herself.
Greta told Australian Story her grandfather’s great love of classical music helped shape her interests as a child.
“My Grandpa was hugely into music. He composed music,” Greta said.
“He also had a very large record collection and he was really interested in certain soprano and certain conductors.
“He and I would sit and listen to his record collection and talk about it.”
In the past year Greta has been fostered by conductor Richard Bonynge.
“She should be singing in Covent Garden because I’ve heard many singers there who are not as good as she is,” Bonynge told Australian Story.
“She’s a one off as far as I’m concerned. She’s very special.”
But it is a path Greta has been reluctant to travel because of the shadow fame has cast over her family.
Bradman childhood and Sir Donald as a grandparent
Greta and her brother Tom Bradman’s childhood was a happy one.
They enjoyed a close relationship with their grandparents, going to their house every day after school and having dinner with them once a week.
“My grandparents were amazing after school carers,” said Tom Bradman.
Lady Jessie Bradman played a pivotal role in their upbringing.
She would bring crayfish for lunch every Saturday and play endless games with the children.
“My grandma had this long, long grey hair that she’d have usually tied up in buns and we’d play witches, she’d let her hair right down,” Tom said.
But even as a child Greta could see the toll fame took on her grandfather.
“Grandpa wouldn’t come to school concerts and things like that because he really just wasn’t comfortable with people staring at him,” she said.
“He didn’t want anything to be different for me.”
According to Greta, Lady Jessie helped him through many public appearances.
“She was so good at conversing with people and keeping the conversations sort of light and keeping grandpa feeling really comfortable because he, socially, I don’t think was quite as fluid in his conversation as she was.”
Full circle name change
As Tom and Greta grew older, Sir Don’s health was failing and John Bradman and his new partner Megan were about to give birth to their son Nicholas
It was then John began to think seriously about the possibility of changing his name back to Bradman.
Tom said for years they had enjoyed “the gift of anonymity” but that it was time to change back.
“When I told him [we were changing our name back to Bradman] he just smiled and said — you know, don’t do it for me,” John said.
“The period of its effectiveness had somehow come to a close,” Tom said.
“We were ready to assume our family name.”
“My grandpa was truly tickled pink,” Greta said.
Don Bradman being asked for an autograph by nine-year-old Rick Scheeren in 1963.
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