This book of elegant and gentle reminiscence covers the period ‘from the depths of the depression to the return of Bradman’. Bradman is used to present a focus of a boy’s perception of his world in the thirties and forties. There is a war, and no cricket, no Bradman. ‘Test cricket was in abeyance, only to return if we won. What would the Germans do to cricket? Ban it? Shoot all cricketers? The Japanese would be worse, Father said. Despite Teutonic arrogance, the Germans were European, while the Japanese were yellow and beyond prediction.’ The war touches life on the Riverina plain near Finley. Planes overhead, men going off to war, and finally, news of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ‘A city had been destroyed. I’d been to Melbourne, I knew what a. city was, and a. city bad been destroyed ... The war, which would soon end, would be leaving us high and dry above the waters that had produced Hammond, Larwood, Voce, Maurice Leyland ... ’ Life will never be the same on the playing fields of Finley or in the paddocks of the Eagle farm. This is a book of sophisticated whimsy, of convincing recollection, of deep but deft seriousness. ‘Time passed. The Germans were defeated. The papers ran articles on the fitness of Bradman and the likelihood of his return.’