”WHEN Australians get hold of a name that suits them they tend to stick with it in a big way.”
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So said travel writer Bill Bryson in his classic book Down Under, about his meanderings around the sunburnt country.
Bryson was referring to the proliferation of Macquaries and Darlings in Australian place names – from Port Macquarie to Lake Macquarie to Bathurst’s Macquarie River and from Darling Harbour to the Darling River to Darlinghurst.
A variation on that theme, Parade reckons, is that when Australia produces a legend of the sporting field or the arts, the various towns, cities or suburbs where the legend spent some time are all very keen to stake their claim and make clear their connection.
Parade is thinking of Henry Lawson (Grenfell, Gulgong and Bourke), Banjo Paterson (Orange, Yass, Gladesville, Winton, Queensland) and Russell Crowe (New Zealand, Nana Glen).
And then there is our Don Bradman.
Bowral is the place that most people associate with the master batsman – he was known as the “boy from Bowral”, after all – and the Southern Highlands town makes the most of that connection with its Bradman Museum and Bradman Oval.
But Sydney (through the SCG, where Bradman played for NSW) also has claims on the run-machine, as does Adelaide, where Bradman lived and worked and spent most of his adult life.
Parade was also aware that Cootamundra had a connection to the game’s greatest batsman and took the opportunity to drop into the Bradman’s Birthplace museum when he passed through the town recently.
What was once a private hospital is now open to the public, so cricket nerds (and Parade) can stand in the very room where the infant Bradman came into the world.
Parade enjoyed it – though he did wonder if the connection was being stretched a little too thin considering Bradman would have only been in the hospital for a short time and would have learnt none of his cricket skills during his stay.
Still, tourism is tourism. Maybe one day Bathurst will be known as the “home of Parade”.