Australia – the Culture

“To appear ordinary, just like everybody else, is sometimes a necessary condition for success in Australia.”

Donald Horne, 1964

“I couldn’t wait to have crack at ’em. I thought: ‘Stuff that stiff upper lip crap – let’s see how stiff it is when it’s split’.”

Jeff Thomson, 1986

THE EVENTS surrounding the 1932/33 series have already been widely written about from a cricketing point of view but if a comprehensive understanding is to be obtained they require consideration from a wider historical perspective and against the local cultural landscape. Every country has its own values, culture, influences and the like, but earlier accounts have analysed the events solely in cricketing terms, when in fact there were sociological and media factors that were unique to Australia plus local economic circumstances that were worse than anywhere else in the world at that time.

Australia is a land of myths – myths largely created by politicians and the press to appeal to the masses. A theme that repeatedly appears is one where the innocent colonial is exploited by the dastardly colonial master, Britain. In 1880, Ned Kelly, a bush-ranger, a highwayman, was hanged for killing three policemen. Kelly was a vicious criminal who deserved his fate but his actions are rationalised as merely the anti-English protests of an Irishman. Some 20 years later a similar thug, “Breaker” Morant, was court-martialled and shot in South African during the Boer War. Along with several other Australians Morant had been a member of the Bushveld Carbineers and it is fact that he was guilty of the cold-blooded murder of a number of unarmed Boer prisoners. The sentence was justified, but like Kelly he is portrayed as a hero, the hapless scapegoat of upper-class English justice; the murderer has become a martyr.

Come forward a few more years to the Dardanelles campaign of 1915 and as mentioned earlier each year there is the hyped-up commemoration of Australian sacrifices for which the British were solely responsible, the myth being that Australian troops would have prevailed but were let down by the British. The 1981 Australian film Gallipoli for instance makes sure that all officers have exaggerated English accents. It is total nonsense but there is a receptive audience for the constant drum of British bungling, British bastardry and British betrayal. Come forward yet again to November 1941 and the loss with all hands of the Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney sunk by a German raider. For some years the myth went the rounds that the reason for the catastrophe was that the captain was an incompetent Englishman; he wasn’t, he was Australian. When placed in the context of this distorted prejudice there is ample logic for the anti-Jardine chorus to be revealed as just part and parcel of the same trait.

Probably due to its relative isolation Australia is one of the most solipsistic of countries. It devotes a considerable amount of energy advertising itself to itself and since there is no contiguous country of similar culture for comparison Australians tend to be victims of their own propaganda; producing distortions that are a symptom of a country impatient to create its own version of history. Another favourite myth, one that is consistently trotted out by politicians, is that of Australian ‘mateship’, the theme being that Australians are totally unique in the way they look after each other as true friends. It is of course arrant rubbish but again there is no nearby country to destroy the belief and this ‘mateship’ is essentially a male thing to be found among ‘blokes’, a word still widely used to connote the admired rough masculinity of Australian men.

Australians are continually told by their own media and politicians that Australia is the greatest country in the world and books about the two World Wars for instance give the impression that hardly any other nation took part. So protective is the attitude that books in Australia are unnecessarily expensive in order to shield Australian authors from foreign competition. One book recently published about the Second World War is sub-titled: “How Australia and its allies swept the Japanese from the Pacific”. The respective combat fatality figures tell the true story – America 104,000, Australia 7,300.

The word ANZAC is so hallowed and revered (and pumped by the media for all it’s worth) in Australia that legislation has been passed to restrict its use. News of sporting successes will be given prominence while losses are likely to be ignored; and thus the Australian populace receive a warped perspective of their country’s performance. This tendency has recently been recognised in the publication of Zombie Myths of Australian Military History, a book that digs under the popular fictions to reveal the truth. In similar fashion, there were consistent media exaggerations and fictions that influenced or were causes of the 1932/33 fracas. This has been largely overlooked previously, but if an appraisal that takes everything into account is to be produced then such cultural matters must be included. If they are not then we are looking at only part of the cause-and-effect picture, but since there were and still are a number of sociological influences and attitudes unique to Australia, those that influenced events in 1932/33 should be brought into view. This is simply a distillation that helps to explain why events unfolded as they did.

In 1932 Australia was an isolated and immature country of only some six million people. It was immature in the sense of being young, Federation of the various States to form the Commonwealth of Australia having only been achieved in 1901 and isolated because it was a European society located many thousands of miles, excluding tiny New Zealand, from any other country of similar culture. It was a fairly rugged, unsophisticated, male orientated, mainly blue collar and almost exclusively beer-drinking society, and as described earlier a culture given to episodes of civil violence. Even today these are a feature of the landscape, riots occurring at Newcastle in 1979, Bathurst in 1980-85 and more recently Redfern in Sydney in 2004.

With facts fanned by an inflammatory press Australia constantly lurches from Federal or State political controversies and scandals to commissions of enquiry. In recent years three State Premiers have been forced to resign because of corruption and one was jailed, and a number of Federal and State Ministers and Police Commissioners have also been jailed or stood aside for similar reasons. The political stage in Australia regularly throws up political leaders with Mafia-like names such as Red Ted, Nifty Nev, Honest John, Black Jack, Slippery Pete and Iron Bar Tucky, characters more like a Damon Runyon story than political leaders in a modern western democracy. So cynical is the public perception of the political process that Australia is one of only ten countries in the world with enforced compulsory voting and political terms are limited to only three years. Although the popular image is of a relaxed and easy-going culture the reality is a country of confrontation, imbroglio and street processions, a turbulent society that is easily provoked into picketing, protest and demonstrations with a homicide rate double that of the United Kingdom and viewed in this perspective the furore of 1932/33 may be seen as little more than par for the course.

At the time of Jardine’s tour a Sydney rail network had just been established, the Sydney Harbour Bridge had recently opened, and contact with Britain was solely by ship or cable. Transport and communications improved considerably after the Second World War, but in the 1950s it still cost an Australian on the average worker’s wage over three years’ earnings for a return flight to Europe. Such flights now cost less than two weeks’ pay, and a journey that then took several days is accomplished in 24 hours with the result that Australians are now among the greatest travellers in the world and Australia has become a popular tourist destination.

However it was then a remote outpost of the Empire and, as eminent Australian historian Russell Ward has written: “The country lived on the myth that the typical Australian was a practical man, rough and ready in his manners, a believer in the near-enough-is-good-enough maxim, and a swearing, gambling, heavy-drinking womaniser.”

Another myth maybe, but as with many ‘myths’, it contained a strong element of fact.

Even today what would be regarded as common etiquette anywhere else in the world is sometimes rejected in Australia as a social affectation. A previous Australian Prime Minister and Labor Party Leader, Paul Keating, has recently complained that conversation today is far too polite in contrast to what might have been the earlier ‘spade is a spade’ vocabulary. Elsewhere in this book, the language and personal abuse hurled at each other by Australian politicians in Parliament is described. It seems probable that the average barracker – if there is such a being – feels that if his political leaders in Canberra and the State capitals can use such offensive broadsides, then he is entitled to behave in like manner at a cricket ground. It would also help to explain the blunt language of the cable sent by the Australian Board of Control to MCC and puts into context the foul language and abuse used by Australian Test cricketers to unsettle their opponents; such behaviour is par for the course.

“Barracking” is in theory merely vocal support for one’s team, but in reality it frequently involves offensive language and shouted personal abuse. It has now abated somewhat, at least at cricket venues, but it still seems to be regarded as an Australian tradition and because of the behaviour of the rowdy crowds, Australia was one of the first Test-playing nations to be forced to ban spectators from coming on to the field during intervals in play. This is in contrast to English county cricket, where a stroll on to the field and a look at the pitch was a tradition for decades.

In March 1933 Australian barrackers were described in a letter to the Sydney Sun as follows:

“They consist in large part of larrikins, habitual loafers and ‘dead beats’ or ‘grass-eaters’ (as they are called in Australia) and irresponsible youths who will always follow the lead of rowdy seniors. They are the worst product of what has been called vicarious athleticism. They play no games themselves and therefore understand nothing of the techniques of the sports (except racing) which they spend a large part of their lives watching. Their favourite amusement, for example, is throwing paper bags full of banana skins and similar ammunition at those who stand up and obstruct their view.”

In other words they were a rowdy rabble.

In his book The Bodyline Controversy, published in 1983, Laurence Le Quesne rationalised Australian barracking as being merely the difference between what he describes as “democracy” in Australia and cricket in England. In England he states that: “Cricket was an aristocratic recreation to which spectators were admitted on sufferance.” Just how he equates this view with the turnstile paying crowd of over 63,000 that watched a three-day match between Surrey and Nottingham in 1892 or the many thousands that regularly paid to watch county matches is not explained. By the end of the 19th century Lord’s could accommodate almost 28,000, the Oval 25,000 and Old Trafford and Trent Bridge each 15,000.

Elsewhere in the same book, he says: “Being a six-days-a-week professional sport had already made cricket in England a harder and more ruthless game than its Australian equivalent.” There is a clear lack of logic here, for if spectators were admitted only ‘on sufferance’ where did the money come from to pay the professionals? Cricket could hardly have been an “aristocratic recreation” and at the same time hard and ruthless.

Le Quesne is entitled to his own view of the world but it is difficult to see how he could claim that cricket in England was “an aristocratic recreation” and yet in the same breath state that it was “harder and more ruthless”. In truth, the reverse was the case. While in England, as Jack Hobbs had observed, the “play” was the thing, in Australia only the result counted, non-professional or not, cricket was frequently an extremely aggressive business and still is today. It was in Australia, not in England, that it was harder and more ruthless. In an attempt to make a point the real difference between the two, and particularly during the 1930s, has been reversed.

Le Quesne also discerns what he describes as a “demotic”, i.e. vulgar, strain emerging in Australian cricket in the late 19th century. This observation is supported by Australian Professor Geoffrey Blainey in his 1964 book, The Tyranny of Distance.

Geoffrey Blainey is one of Australia’s most respected historians and authors, and he stated then: “Ambition and the desire to raise oneself beyond one’s station were considered to be vices by a majority or an influential minority of Australian men and in the equalitarian society of the 19th century education itself was often seen as a form of snobbery.”

Few other cultures would have regarded education in this manner, but this strain in the national psyche was still evident in the early 1930s and would have played a part in events. Jardine was educated, therefore he was regarded as a snob, or so the prevailing Australian male attitude at that time would have said. This aspect of the national culture may also explain why Jardine was vilified but the bowler, Larwood, was not. Harold Larwood would have been perceived as ‘one of them’ and therefore largely excused, whereas Douglas Jardine was clearly a member of the despised ruling class and accordingly fair game for the jeering ridicule of the barrackers and the local media.

Some 60 years later this education ‘chip’ erupted within the Labor Party in a spat between Prime Minister Paul Keating and the erudite and articulate Labor MP Jim McClelland. McClelland’s intellectual stature irritated Keating to such an extent that he shouted at him: “Just because you swallowed a f*****g dictionary when you were 15 doesn’t give you the right to pour a bucket of s**t over the rest of us.” Rhetoric of the waterfront and idiom of the gutter provoked by an inferiority complex, and language that caused hardly a comment, but then maybe many Australians agreed with Keating’s language and sentiments. If so, go back to 1932/33 and Jardine’s obstacles come into stark relief.

Reference was made to this unusual attitude in the introduction to Donald Horne’s 1964 book, The Lucky Country, when he wrote: “To appear ordinary, just like everybody else, is sometimes a necessary condition for success in Australia.”

This is an interesting comparison with England where eccentric individualism has always been valued and cherished as part of the national character.

The Lucky Country was written over 30 years after Jardine’s tour but his views were unchanged in a revised edition published in 1998. This demand of ‘equality’ manifested itself in some odd ways. For instance at the time of the 1932/33 tour and for some years afterwards a taxi driver would probably have been offended, and would have said so, if a passenger had taken a back seat in his cab and not used the seat beside him. To have taken the rear seat would have implied a superiority that was unacceptable. In Sydney at least this has disappeared some time ago as Asian taxi drivers took over, men who had no interest in where their customers chose to sit, but this social symbolism remains at the highest political level in Australia. The demands of the equalitarian culture are such that even in the official car Australian Prime Ministers usually sit in the front seat beside the driver, making Australia one of the only countries in the world (I don’t know of any others) where the nation’s top politicians don’t sit in the back seat as other leaders do.

Light is thrown on this from a different angle by Australian author Lynette Ramsay Silver, in her Second World War book Sandakan: A Conspiracy of Silence. She records that men who were well-educated and highly intelligent rejected commissions because they preferred to be, as she puts it, “one of the boys”. It seems that for many Australians the very idea of being an officer carried with it some sort of social opprobrium, almost a case of class betrayal.

Such was the macho mateship society that acclaimed Australian playwright Ray Lawler, author of The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, has said that when writing the play in the late 1940s he had to keep it quiet because writing “was a sissy thing to do”.

A comment made by Australian cricket writer Jack Pollard may further reveal the cultural attitudes towards visiting cricketers. In his book, The Formative Years of Australian Cricket 1803-93, published in 1990, Pollard mentions the visit of a side led by Lord Harris in 1878. This team was intended to have consisted entirely of amateurs but a strong enough group of amateurs could not be found and so the team included two professionals. At that time there were many teams made up of only amateurs and therefore there was nothing remarkable in this. However, Pollard describes the team as being “gentlemen cricketers with public school and university backgrounds who were used to refined and courteous behaviour” (author’s italics).

In view of the considerable time taken to travel by sea to Australia and the cost involved, it might have been thought that Australian cricket authorities would have welcomed and been hospitable to any visiting cricket team. The fact that this team were nearly all amateurs one might have believed to be irrelevant, because at the end of the day cricketers are surely just that, cricketers. Pollard’s use of the words “used to refined and courteous behaviour” is interesting. The very fact that it is mentioned at all is strange. Was polite behaviour so unreasonable or unusual in Australia, or was it regarded as some form of affectation?

The fact that Pollard’s comment appeared in a book published near the end of the 20th century provides an important perspective when examining the problems faced by Douglas Jardine some 60 years earlier as Australia was only just emerging as a country on the international stage. The class prejudice behind his words seems to be demonstrated by his specific mention of the fact that the two professionals in the team travelled second-class on the ship and stayed in hotels that were inferior to the hotels used by the amateurs. It is possible that Pollard did not realise that the professionals would have been paid a lump sum for the tour and in all probability deliberately chose their accommodation in order to keep their own company, keep costs down and thus make more money in the process.

In comparison Australians seem to admire what they term a larrikin. The Australian Oxford Dictionary defines larrikin as being of Australian origin: “A young street rowdy or hooligan.” It is more likely that the actual character admired is a mischief-making individual rather than a ruffian, and this may have emerged from the original convict system, where taking the “Mickey” out of those in authority can be understood. This may be why Australian humour is largely based on ridicule or “sending up”, i.e. at someone else’s expense.

Comments regarded as funny in Australia may sometimes be thought strange in England. The double entendre humour of Spike Milligan or the harmless wit of the Two Ronnies is rarely found in Australia. Remarks that elsewhere might be regarded as somewhat offensive are often thought to be humorous in Australia and even today it is frequently a lack of familiarity that sometimes seems to breed a reaction of some contempt. The question must be asked whether this local trait was not one of the contributing factors in the anti-Jardine theme of the 1930s Australian press and the language used by the barrackers that the MCC team described as being so offensive? Were some of the remarks shouted by barrackers thought to be humorous by Australians but offensive and crude by standards elsewhere?

This feature may be an aspect of what Professor Geoffrey Blainey referred to as “equalitarianism” in that however unruly, at least a larrikin does not stand out from the crowd and would not commit the crime of having social aspirations (the larrikin element may also contribute to a society given to episodes of violence). This was another factor drawn upon by the local press in their attacks on Jardine. If the typical Australian at that time was even nearly as described earlier by Australian historian Russell Ward, or influenced by that sort of person, it would have been all too easy to play the “equalitarian” card to whip up ferment against Jardine.

Even today this type is still regarded with nostalgia, a recent book review describing the central character as “representing the true Australian male at his best: a larrikin, despising greed and conservatism, living hand-to-mouth while cursing the affluence around him, the mateship tradition in the fierce joshing camaraderie that exists in Australia”. With this level of priority still persisting in some quarters is it any wonder that Douglas Jardine encountered such a cultural minefield 80 years ago?

It would seem to have been this attitude that gave rise to what is a uniquely Australian media driven phenomenon: the “Tall Poppy Syndrome”, which still persists today. In Australia, a striving achiever, i.e., a Tall Poppy, defined in the Australian Oxford Dictionary as a “vulnerably eminent person”, is regarded as fair game to be cut down. In most cultures this would seem counterproductive, and where the majority of societies now believe in equality of opportunity, the Australian requirement is for equality itself, a kind of cross-societal levelling. When they have succeeded in bringing some individual of standing to their knees, the glee of the Australian press is quite palpable. Mediocrity has triumphed over brilliance. A recent full page article in The Sydney Morning Herald was headlined: “We love to see the mighty brought down”.

The bizarre “Tall Poppy” feature of the local culture came to the fore in a literal sense recently when the Governor-General of Australia, elegant lady Quentin Bryce, was widely accused of spending too much on fresh flowers for Government House. The flowers were largely for the public reception areas of the Vice-Regal residence, a feature that might have been thought to be a rational measure to enhance the elegance and standing of her position. That a trivial issue involving a few thousand dollars should have provoked widespread editorial comment in the year 2011 is yet another mark of a nation that even now somehow feels uncomfortable with dignity and refinement – as if such attributes are still seen somehow as un-Australian.

The Tall Poppy Syndrome appears to be the almost inevitable reverse of the larrikin coin. The same newspaper described a larrikin as: “Unpretentious, anti-intellectual, working-class, sport-loving, staunchly heterosexual, rough, ready and a basically decent bloke with a grin as broad as his accent.”

In the local culture then, the Tall Poppy appears to be regarded as a sort of ‘class traitor’ so any move towards a different culture or a betrayal of common origins would be viewed as someone who has let the side down. But if the description of the reason for the larrikin being admired is accurate, then this may at least partly explain why the offensive language of some Australian politicians passes without comment and is seen in some circles as being quintessentially Australian. A display of individuality or leadership could well be met with rebuff, scoffing or ridicule and any prominent individual who falls from grace, for virtually any reason, seems to be the source of media-driven public satisfaction – a mob desire to knock someone off his perch.

Perhaps the very fact of Jardine’s Harlequin cricket colours was in itself seen as provocative. These colours could be worn anywhere else in the cricket world without comment, but in Australia they were the object of scorn and ridicule. The colours of his cap marked Jardine out as being different, and in Australia being “different”, as Donald Horne wrote, was against the rules. However illogical as Le Quesne’s aristocracy-versus-democracy rationale may seem, it does suggest that it was this feature within the Australian sociological landscape that was one of the fundamental ingredients and because of it, Jardine was more victim than villain.

The “Tall Poppy” mentality may also have contributed to the derision that was poured on anyone who played football – called “soccer” in Australia – as opposed to the long-standing revered codes of rugby union, rugby league and Australian Rules. Soccer was seen to be “different” and therefore deserving of scorn. Even decades after the Jardine tour, Australian soccer players were still being sneered at and called “Sheilas” or “wogs”, betraying a prejudice prompted by suspicion of the new and that being the case, it doesn’t require too much imagination to visualise the attitudes in the 1930s.

Previous to the Second World War, Australia’s immigration intake was almost exclusively from the UK and Ireland, and it was only after the war, and then entirely thanks to a refreshing influx of migrants from Greece, Italy, the Balkans and central Europe, that the game of football with its worldwide following began to take off in Australia. As late as 1969, a ticker-tape parade for the Australian football team was booed and jeered by large elements in the crowd with colourful epithets such as “f****n’ poofters”, and “dago bastards” but in fact most of the team was made up of names such as Warren, Corry, Ackerley, Keith, Wilkins, Watkiss, Lloyd, Westwater and Richards, hardly a “dago” collection. Considering what these football players had to put up with from their own countrymen, it is easy to understand what visiting teams have had to endure from cricket barrackers. Footballers were “different” and accordingly were vilified, stigmatised and abused, even though they were all Australian.

This hostility to anything that was unfamiliar and not ‘Australian’ erupted violently when Australian troops were sent to Singapore in 1941. There were a number of pitched battles between Australian and British troops resulting in the death of one Australian. This reaction seems to have been caused by resentment and contempt towards the local social and military environment. Whatever the root cause it does not appear to have been provoked by the attitudes of either the British forces or the civilian population because some months earlier several battalions of Canadian troops had arrived in Hong Kong where the circumstances, both social and military, would have been identical and yet no similar problems occurred there.

About a year later there was yet another example of this hatred of anything different when American troops were stationed in Australia. There were a number of violent confrontations with the Americans culminating in a mob of 5,000 being involved in the Battle of Brisbane in November 1942 which again included one death. Nothing like this ever featured in Britain despite far greater numbers of US forces being stationed there. Not surprisingly news of this episode was heavily censored but once again Australia had encountered a different culture, one that it did not understand, and because it was not understood it was resented; it was a siege mentality.

In the early 1930s there was a fundamental difference between Australia and England in attitudes towards authority, and this is still largely the case today (in the Second World War the court martial rate in the Australian army was as high as one in 20). Whereas in England there was, by and large, an acceptance of traditional spheres and sources of influence and authority, in Australia, those in authority were generally regarded with cynicism and/or contempt. Trade unionism was very strong in Australia at that time (even in the 21st century it still has some of the world’s most militant unions), and this allegiance would have fuelled the anti-authority element, which is a manifestation of the “equalitarianism” referred to by Professor Geoffrey Blainey.

A large percentage of the anti-authority attitude in Australia no doubt sprang from the convict background of some of the early settlers who found themselves in a completely foreign, strange and inhospitable landscape. However, when these convicts finished their sentences and were eventually freed, they had a choice of either being repatriated back to England or they could settle in the country and if they chose to do so, they were offered, in some cases, generous land grants. Many chose to return to England and Ireland but a large percentage of these subsequently returned to Australia as freemen and took up their entitlements, settled the land and in many cases became successful businessmen and landholders. It is easy to see that the convict background with its cruelty and hardship had generated an anti-authority attitude and may be what has fuelled the “Tall Poppy Syndrome”. Today, those who can trace their background back to the convicts are considered to be among the “elite”, much the same as the Americans look with reverence upon their Founding Fathers.

It may have been this aspect that Le Quesne had in mind when he stated that Australia was more democratic than England. This is really a matter of perspective. It was not that democracy was greater in Australia, rather that it was taking an aggressive form and although it might be claimed that the absence of “class” in Australia was to be lauded, despite any pretence to the contrary class does exist in Australia, just as anywhere else, but it manifests itself in different ways – financial envy rather than social background, balance sheets instead of blood lines. Wealth is regarded as culturally immoral in what is supposed to be an egalitarian society, the local press still referring to the leaders of industry as “bosses”.

Certainly there does exist in Australia an anti-English streak of Irish and English origin. Given the treatment meted out to Catholic peasants in Ireland by absentee Protestant landlords in the 19th century, the official indifference to the appalling misery of the famines and the number of Irish who had to migrate to Australia as a result, this resentment is not surprising. In the 1850s, for example, through the Donegal Relief Fund, subscriptions were raised in Sydney to finance three relief ships to bring out to the colony starving peasants from Donegal, people who had been ejected from their land and were even being charged for the seaweed some were collecting from the seashore in an effort to just survive. Add to that the brutal quashing of the Easter Uprising and executions, and the atrocities committed by the notorious Black and Tans all of which reverberated through the Irish community, and the simmering resentments that came to the surface in times of hardship can be understood.

There is a sizeable community of Irish extraction, and the bitter memories of such episodes still contribute to periodic railings against the English. In addition to the Irish segment a considerable number of migrants had come from the industrial Midlands and north of England to escape the congested and insanitary conditions of life among the mills, foundries and mines where, as Correlli Barnett says in his book The Audit of War, they had been exploited like coolies by mine and factory owners. They had found welcome and understanding in the new land where they could voice their views as relative equals without fear but inherited tales of industrial misery and establishment attitudes lingered on.

But let us go forward a few years to events that occurred on the Australian Test scene some time after the 1932/33 series, to events in a country that had moved forward and become far more worldly and yet where the same type of fracas was likely to arise. The country had changed considerably but the barracking element continued which gives a measure of what was experienced in the 1930s. In 1971 English fast bowler John Snow was pelted with beer cans and had bottles thrown at him by a mob on “the hill” at the Sydney Cricket Ground. He had his shirt grabbed by a drunken spectator because an Australian batsman Terry Jenner had misjudged a short ball bowled by Snow and was struck on the head when he ducked into it. The English skipper, Ray Illingworth, led his team from the field judging that he did not want to subject his players to the heated melee and physical danger that they were encountering at that time. This sort of rumpus would have been cause for considerable concern had it been allowed to occur in England, but it was reported locally as being the fault of Snow for bowling bumpers. As will be seen the real culprit in 1932/33 appears to have been unpredictable pitches and the same was true of this incident.

During the 1974/75 Ashes series, on pitches of unpredictable bounce that were helpful to their speed, the Australian fast pair of Lillee and Thomson were causing so many serious injuries to the English batsmen that Colin Cowdrey had to be flown out as a replacement. In a series which Australia won 4-1, due largely to this fearsome twosome, the seething inferno of the local crowds were chanting “kill, kill, kill” when either of the two ran in to bowl and cheering each injury inflicted. It would be interesting to see the reaction if the boot had been on the other foot. Why didn’t local writers describe this sort of crowd as “malicious” in the same fashion as they described leg-theory? This was 40 years after the 1932/33 series but the same crowd reactions seemed to have persisted – and like the 1932/33 series, pitches of unpredictable bounce were largely to blame.

As a postscript, Cowdrey, having been rushed into the Test arena almost immediately he arrived, thought he should introduce himself to Jeff Thomson when he went in to bat. Cowdrey offered his hand and said: “We haven’t met. My name’s Colin Cowdrey.” Thomson brushed aside the proffered hand, saying “get f****d”. Perhaps Thomson’s contemptuous and ill-mannered rejoinder should not come as such a surprise for as mentioned earlier there are times when what would be regarded as common courtesy in England is dismissed here as sham pretension and this might explain Thomson’s terse reaction. In this context it may be appropriate to mention an observation made by Trevor Bailey in his 1986 autobiography Wickets, Catches and the Odd Run. In 1948 and due to petrol rationing he hitched a lift in the Australian team bus when they were playing Essex.

He said: “I acquired a lift in the Australian coach to my home town, which proved an interesting experience. My admiration for them as cricketers was enormous, but individually they were so far removed from the Cambridge and Essex players I knew that they almost seemed to have come from a different planet.”

Bailey did not elaborate any further but what had happened was that although this was 16 years after 1932/33 he had for the first time come face-to-face with the same isolated culture that had reacted with such hostility to Douglas Jardine and a little later had attacked British and American troops.

Again, during the 1985/86 series New Zealand fast bowler Richard Hadlee had to continually endure the barracking Australian chorus of “Hadlee is a w****r” when he was bowling. He was at the time scything his way through the Australian batting and as a result the crowd felt that he had to be put off. Hadlee was similarly effective wherever he bowled, and particularly so in England, but he never experienced similar problems in any other country.

Mike Brearley was also subjected to a campaign of jeering, sneering and abuse by the cricket mobs in 1978/79. An article in the 2005 Diamond Jubilee edition of The Journal of the Cricket Society included a report that stated: “Brearley was subjected to a disgraceful campaign of abuse and jeering by the crowd orchestrated by Lillee and Ian Chappell, which surely must represent the nadir of sportsmanship in cricket.”

England won that series 5-1, but again it seems clear that the unacceptable fact of an Australian defeat was the provocation for the mob element to be let loose. It is also possible that Brearley may have been perceived as emanating from the same social strata as Jardine and so perhaps that was the problem.

Sri Lankan spinner Muttiah Muralitharan, affectionately known as “Murali”, stated at one time that he would never tour Australia again because of the barracking he received every time he bowled here. This barracking drew comment from renowned Australian cricket coach Tom Moody, who said that it made him ashamed that his own countrymen behaved in such a fashion. It should be noted that Murali was “no-balled” only by Australian umpires, and each time it was only in Australia. This is despite his action having been cleared following a minute examination by the biomechanical departments of the Universities of Hong Kong and Western Australia.

Murali was interviewed by Tony Greig on Australia’s Channel 9 television, who demonstrated that his arm just does not straighten in the normal fashion, but even that was not enough. It is interesting to note that when the same Australian umpires officiated elsewhere in the world while Murali was bowling they said nothing. He has bowled in precisely the same manner anywhere, but it is only in Australia that he has had to endure this barracking of his bowling action. If this were not enough to put up with, after having been cleared by none other than Sir Donald Bradman, who said, “Clearly, Murali does not throw the ball,” the then Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, a cricket enthusiast, added fuel to the flames by publicly stating that Murali was a “chucker”. It was a comment made for populist political consumption.

This episode of crude headline-grabbing by Howard inevitably came back to bite him with the Indian sub-continent blocking his ambition to be President of the International Cricket Council. Cricket Australia has vigorously complained about this, seemingly oblivious of the fact that while such an outspoken level of bluntness may be admired domestically as ‘Australian’, there are times when a little subtlety can avoid offence. Language that passes without comment in Australia can cause indignation elsewhere. In similar fashion but on a different plane Prime Minister Paul Keating (again) caused a serious diplomatic rift with Malaysia in 1993 when he publicly described their Prime Minister Mahatir Mohammed as “recalcitrant”. Once again, and at a level where diplomatic tact would have been thought a necessity, Keating simply said what he thought and to hell with the consequences.

But to go back to 1932/33, during the first Test, Bob Wyatt was fielding on the fine leg boundary, and although he was in no way connected with the bowling attack, he was pelted with half-chewed oranges, apple cores and other fruit and any other missile the crowd could lay their hands on. The point might be made that this was a Test won by England and it is interesting to note that when it came to the second Test, where Australia were the victors, there was neither missile-throwing nor crowd rowdiness.

Both Jack Hobbs and Harold Larwood, in their respective books on that tour, commented on the problem of the Australian barracker. Both made the same point that there appeared to be two Australias: one on the cricket ground and the other off it. Hobbs was by nature a fairly reticent character, but even he wrote: “Australians are delightful off a cricket ground, but on, most of them lose all sense of proportion. They think they are unbeatable and when defeat comes they cannot stand it.”

Hobbs went on to say that some of the language used by the Australian barrackers was such that if used in England it would have resulted in arrest for uttering bad language. Neither the Australian press nor the cricket authorities made any attempt to curb this behaviour.

Quoting once more from a member of the 1932/33 tour, in his book My Cricketing Reminiscences, Maurice Tate described the barracking as: “Absolutely vicious. Their batsmen had never played against anything so fast before, and they didn’t like it. If I were to reproduce some of the specimens of the barracking our men had to put up with, particularly Jardine and Larwood, people at home could understand what it was like; but no printer would publish it.”

Such has been the consistent problem of violent and unruly sports crowd behaviour in Australia that in 1992 a specific study entitled Crowd Violence at Australian Sport was produced by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences of the University of Western Sydney. The study states: “From the middle of the 19th century to the present day unruly crowd behaviour has been a feature of Australian cricket.” It goes on to mention that in hard economic times in Australia, such as during the 1930s Depression, the plebeian component at cricket games became dominant.

This would go a long way to explaining the violent crowd reaction before and during the third Test at Adelaide in 1932 and the ferocious barracking throughout that tour. These have almost universally been portrayed as having been provoked solely by the England tactics, but as this Australian study makes quite clear this was not necessarily the case for such eruptions were a component of society and were not at all unusual. The study reports that trivial incidents such as a dropped catch could result in the player concerned coming under a barrage of missiles from inebriated spectators, and specifically mentions a case at the Sydney Cricket Ground in 1964/65 when “a player was pelted with cans after he dropped a catch in front of a group of patrons who were swilling beer”. Such unruly behaviour was attributed to the irascibility of crowds when play became slow on a hot day. This being the case it throws into stark focus the gladiator pit-like cauldron that Jardine’s men had to endure when they inflicted defeats on Australia.

Plum Warner, captain of the 1903/04 MCC team, made a quasi tongue-in-cheek prediction of what visiting sides were likely to experience. In his book How We Recovered the Ashes he suggested that England teams would need to be accompanied by a complete Army Corps so that the cricketers be adequately protected. Based on his experience Warner’s wry comment was not without foundation. In the first Test of that series at Sydney, Australian batsman Clem Hill was correctly given run out by umpire Crockett when he had made 51. Starting from the Members’ Pavilion a chorus of hisses immediately erupted which led to general booing all around the ground rising to such a clamour that Warner felt his team should leave the field, the demonstration being accompanied by shouts such as “how much did you pay Crockett, Warner?” Matters eventually quietened down and play continued.

There was another violent demonstration some three months later during the fourth Test, also at Sydney, caused by nothing more than an interruption because of rain. A large section of the crowd decided that Warner had paid the umpires to delay play to England’s advantage and the ground was littered with broken glass from bottles hurled on to the field. General bedlam ensued with the same bellowed epithets and allegations of bribery, and in line with what Larwood would have to endure the crowd tried to put Wilfred Rhodes off his stride by counting “one, two, three” in time with his approach to the wicket. Warner commented in his book: “Yes, they are a lovely crowd at Sydney, and anyone who has taken part in a Test match there may consider himself thoroughly salted and fit to play before an audience from the infernal regions.”

Fairly strong words for a tactful man like Warner, but maybe it was because of these episodes that he remained largely impassive in 1932/33. Needless to say, and as was to be the case with leg-theory, these violent crowd eruptions were provoked by almost any issue that was seen to go against Australia’s interests.

Barracking seems to come from the sort of vocal and unruly mob element described in the Sydney Sun letter. As such it would be quite unfair to say it is representative of all Australian cricket crowds or that all people attending a cricket match behave in this fashion for they certainly do not. Unfortunately though, because of the publicity given to this rowdy element all Australian cricket crowds have been tarred with the same brush. What does emerge is that the language and behaviour of the barracker is a measure of whether Australia are winning or losing.

When Australia are in the ascendancy there will be little other than applause, but when the players are up against it that is when colourful expressions deteriorate into outright abuse of the opposition and violence erupts. That being the case and since Australia were losing it is a moot point whether crowd violence would have occurred in 1932/33, even without leg-theory.

Cricket crowds in England are unfortunately not that innocent themselves these days but, in the 1930s, they were much quieter. Australian Test cricketer Charlie Macartney, a batsman of such elegance and authority that he was known as “The Governor General”, had toured England in 1912, 1921 and 1926, and in 1927 he commented: “It has often been a cause of wonderment to me why the crowds generally in England are so quiet.” Had Macartney played cricket in South Africa or New Zealand, he would probably have been equally surprised at the peaceful atmosphere, for the rowdy and abusive cricket crowd was found only in Australia.

The difference between crowd behaviour in Australia and England at that time was emphasised by The Times which, in 1921, stated that barracking was “entirely foreign to the true spirit of the game” and, in 1933, went so far as to say that barracking by Australian spectators had been a major contribution to the ill feeling surrounding the bodyline controversy. This issue was carried still further by that newspaper in a 1933 editorial when it stated: “Barracking had never been allowed to get out of hand in England.” In Australia nothing was done to curb it.

Another facet of the culture that may have had a bearing on Jardine and the leg-theory imbroglio is sometimes how thin-skinned Australians can be. There seems to be a lurking suspicion that a general comment, irrespective of however innocent it might be, could be a slight specifically aimed at Australia. As a dignified old Australian explained it to the author some years ago: “Australians are very balanced people – we have a chip on both shoulders.” Quoting Jack Hobbs once more, and stemming from that tour, he wrote: “Australians strongly resent criticism, although quite ready to hand it out to English people.” This is still largely true today.

A chestnut that has grown out of this sensitivity is the myth of the “whinging Pom” – another press-concocted expression – the theory being that all English migrants, and only the English, complain endlessly. There is no evidence that the English arriving in Australia as migrants made comments, and they probably were mere comments that were no different to those that they would have made as new arrivals in other countries like Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA. Neither is there any evidence that such comments were not made by the thousands of Italians and Greeks who arrived in Australia after the Second World War, but it is the English who are targeted.

People arriving in a new country will always comment, but such remarks are usually only observations or comparisons. However it is only in Australia that innocent remarks provoked such local resentment that they caused a phrase to be coined. Nothing even remotely like it is heard in any other country and this does seem to bear out the comment made by Jack Hobbs that Australians strongly resent criticism. The strange word “Pom”, used mainly today only by the cheaper end of the Australian press, is likely to fall into disuse as the country matures further, just as words such as “Gringo” or “Limey” are no longer heard in the Americas.

There is no contiguous country of similar culture with which to compare experiences or indeed to debunk such beliefs. For example, Canada shares a vast border with the United States, and such myths have never emerged there. It is from isolation that resentments, prejudices and imagined insults are more likely to arise, be fostered and maintained, particularly when fanned by a local media that has no other country nearby to refute the theories. But, as with any outdated theories, there will always be those who, for one reason or another, continue to cling to them and may even find them reassuring.

It may be asked, what does any of this have to do with the events of 1932/33? Australia is now recognised in matters of global politics, the sciences, industry, finance and the arts; Australian restaurants and wines are world-class. The earlier problems of distance and location have all but disappeared with immediate telephone links, satellite TV, e-mail, Skype and the like, and the workforce is no longer predominantly blue collar. But there still linger on many of the cultural aspects that influenced the issues of 1932/33.

As the Sydney Morning Herald tellingly stated in September 2006: “We canonise anybody who makes it in the U.S. or Britain no matter how lowbrow the performer.”

Quite simply, if this is the way Australia promotes and celebrates any Australian achieving even a small degree of world standing in the 21st century, then it is easy to comprehend the massive pedestal on which the country had placed Don Bradman in 1932. Also, one may understand the reaction to anything that might be perceived as criticism and the resentment at anything, or anyone, who reduced Bradman’s standing and threatened the massive national emotion that had been invested in him. With this sort of reaction occurring from time to time in Australia even now, it seems clear that England’s Ashes captain Douglas Jardine was up against a whole nation some 80 years ago when he brought an Australian icon down to earth in the middle of a severe economic depression. With the demigod Bradman apparently reduced to a mere mortal, some reason, some explanation had to be found by the local media and therefore a reaction was inevitable and in particular in a society where violence was a regular feature.

It is doubtful whether German dramatist Bertolt Brecht knew anything about cricket but he might easily have been writing of Australia with his famed line: “Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.”

And then, as we shall see, there was the Australian obsession with sport.