That Bradman became a hero in the 1930s needs no explanation. Australians suffered desperately during the Depression, and the young Bradman’s dominance over England on the cricket field symbolised national resilience and resistance. But for Bradman to remain a national icon seventy years later does require some explanation. The majority view is that he represents an ideal of Australian individuality – the ‘boy from the bush’ who conquered the world but retained the simplicity of rural family values. But there’s a dissenting view emerging in Australia, one that argues that an idealised Bradman has been constructed for political purposes: that he’s been used – in an increasingly multicultural society - to sustain an idea that the ‘real’ Australia is still white, Protestant and linked to Britain.

This programme looks at the efforts in Australia to ‘demythologise’ Bradman: at arguments that as a young man he was attracted to the politics of the far right: that as a captain he was biased against Catholics; that as a businessman he received political protection; and that he was far from being an ideal family man. We talk to the academics and journalists in Australia who are trying to replace the myth with the reality of a complex man: and we talk to those intent on protecting Bradman’s iconic status. The programme reports from his birthplace in Bowral, where the Bradman Museum is for many a place of pilgrimage and from Adelaide, where he lived for most of his life yet whose prestigious Adelaide Club never offered him membership. And we report on increasingly bitter battles in the courts over the use of his name – despite the fact that John Howard has given “Bradman” special legal protection.