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Restoring the house where Bradman learnt his art of cricket

It was also the same house in the backyard of which Bradman practiced his strokes by throwing a golf ball at the base of a tank stand and play shots on rebound.

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The childhood home where Don Bradman lived from 1911 to 1924 in Bowral. The boy in front of the fence is young Bradman himself. (Below) The restored house as it looks now, (Right) Andrew Leeming
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"Thank you, Now I can die happy."

These were the words of legendary India opening batsman Sunil Gavaskar after a visit recently to 52, Shepherd Street, Bowral.

The story goes that Andrew Leeming, the Australian businessman, who has undertaken the project to restore the house where the all-time greatest batsman Donald Bradman lived from the age of three to 16, from 1911 to 1924, and put Bowral on the world map, had left instructions with the staff on site not to allow visitors until the work was completed. But when a certain Gavaskar turns up at the under-construction site, you don't turn him away.

The staff took the liberty, without Leeming's permission, to let Gavaskar take a round of the place where Bradman and his four siblings lived with their parents in his formative years. It was also the house where his future wife, Jessie, also lived in the latter part of the Bradman's stay.

Make no mistake, the Bradman House is different from the Bradman Museum that is also in Bowral.

It was also the same house in the backyard of which Bradman practiced his strokes by throwing a golf ball at the base of a tank stand and play shots on rebound. It was here that he would play imaginary 'Test' matches with the door behind him the wicket and where he devised ways to get caught and also score boundaries. It was at this street where he sharpened his catching abilities by throwing a golf ball on a rounded rail at varying heights and taking the rebounds.

Practicing shots off the rebound from the tank stand was not easy. Leeming has even offered a thousand dollars to those who can connect three consecutive deliveries with a stump, like the Don did.

"No one has been able to take the challenge and the money is safe. So it is a good challenge," Leeming said at the launch of the restoration of the Bradman House here on Monday evening.

Leeming said that the difficulty in practicing the shots off the rebound was due to the uneven surface that Bradman had to contend with.

Leeming discovered in the process of restoring the house that Bradman's father George recycled the bricks after breaking one of the two chimneys the house had to construct an extra bedroom for the extended family.

After the Bradmans moved from Shepherd Street to a bigger house, the legendary Australian batsman visited the house only once, to film his famous golf-ball-stump practice after the successful tour of England in 1930.

The ownership of the house changed several hands over the years and minor alterations made with the permission of the authorities. Having lived all over the world for business, Leeming decided to return to Australia and found an advertisement that the Bradman House was up for sale.

He bought it from the widow of a scientist and took steps to restore it to the original state, including the two chimneys that were there when it was first acquired by the Bradmans in 1911.

Every minute detail including the wall colours are original, as it was in the period the Bradmans lived there. The pathways, the garden, the gramophone, the piano, the bicycle Bradman rode up and downhill, the fence, among others that were used have been restored, though not the original versions for obvious reasons.

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