Share
Clip description
In this clip you hear the team’s new star, Don Bradman, begin to speak. The order of all the speakers on the record is Bill Woodfull, captain of the team, followed by senior batsman Alan Kippax, spin bowler Clarrie Grimmett, Bradman, fast bowler Tim Wall and all-rounder Stan McCabe, youngest member of the team.
Curator’s notes
It is clear from the stilted delivery of Bradman and the other players that the recording was completely scripted, and that they were unaccustomed to the new technology. Bradman sounds very stiff and formal here. He even later fluffs a line when he says ‘Fortune favoured me from the start of the tour and managed to keep it’. Few people would have been familiar with Bradman’s peculiarly high-pitched voice in 1930, so we may assume that his presence on the record was the main selling attraction. It’s curious then that he doesn’t appear until halfway through – as the first to speak on the B-side. The discs were limited to three minutes per side, which is why we hear a break in the middle of the recording.
The speaking order on the record appears to have been determined by age – or perhaps seniority. The first three speakers are in their 30s. The B-side contains the youngsters – Bradman at 21, Tim Wall at 26 and ‘Young Napper’, Stan McCabe, who turned 20 while on tour. The unidentified woman who introduces them, possibly BBC journalist Catherine (Kit) Fenton, was more correct than she could know – the recording was indeed historic.
One of the ironies of the recording is that Bill Woodfull says they are heading home with precious cargo, ‘The Ashes’. In fact, The Ashes urn remained at its home at the Marylebone Cricket Club at Lords Cricket Ground in London, as always. The urn stays in its display case at Lords no matter which team has won it.
