The recent disclosure that Sir Donald George Bradman warmly welcomed Labor’s defeat in the 1975 federal election must have come as a shock to anyone foolish enough to have presumed that this staunchly Protestant stockbroker, Freemason, monarchist, and Companion of the Order of Australia was something of a closet Communist.

But the publication of the Don’s effusive epistle, written upon the election of Malcolm Fraser, has at least had the salutary effect of exposing other ironies.