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Early years

Donald George Bradman was the youngest son of George and Emily (née Whatman) Bradman, and was born on 27 August 1908 at Cootamundra, New South Wales (NSW). He had a brother, Victor, and three sisters – Islet, Lilian and Elizabeth May.

Bradman was of English heritage on both sides of his family. His grandfather Charles Andrew Bradman had left Withersfield, Suffolk, for Australia. In 1930, when he played at Cambridge during his first tour of England, 21-year-old Bradman took the opportunity to trace his forebears in the region. Bradman was also partly of Italian lineage; one of his great-grandfathers had been one of the first Italians to migrate to Australia in 1826.

Bradman's parents lived in the hamlet of Yeo Yeo, near Stockinbingal. His mother, Emily, gave birth to him at the Cootamundra home of Granny Scholz, a midwife, which is now the Bradman Birthplace Museum. Bradman's mother had hailed from Mittagong in the NSW Southern Highlands and in 1911, when Bradman was about two-and-a-half years old, his parents decided to relocate to Bowral, close to Emily's family and friends in Mittagong, as life at Yeo Yeo was proving difficult. Emily, who bowled left-arm spin, played in the women's intercolonial cricket competition between the main states in 1890s.

Bradman practised batting incessantly during his youth. He invented his own solo cricket game, using a cricket stump for a bat and a golf ball. A water tank, mounted on a curved brick stand, stood on a paved area behind the family home. When hit into the curved brick facing of the stand, the ball rebounded at high speed and varying angles—and Bradman would attempt to hit it again. This form of practice developed his timing and reactions to a high degree. In more formal cricket, Bradman hit his first century at the age of 12, with an undefeated 115 playing for Bowral Public School against Mittagong High School.