A special members' lunch which celebrated memories of Sir Donald Bradman at the Basin Reserve today capped off the Wellington Cricket Association's 125th jubilee weekend.

Billed as a "I Remember Bradman" occasion it produced several memories.

Jumbo Symes, a Wellington player of the 1930s, recalled taking Bradman for a drive through the Wairarapa in 1971 and stopping at the Mt Bruce Wildlife Sanctuary.

When the curator realised Bradman was having a look around he was invited out the back, and out of the public gaze, to see the first birth of a Notornis chick in captivity.

A few weeks later the bird died and Symes sent a clipping to Bradman advising him of the bird's death.

A few days later a reply came from Bradman thanking Symes for the news clipping but advising that he had heard of the bird's death on a radio news item and had already written a letter to the curator of the Mt Bruce Sanctuary.

On the occasion of the drive through the Wairarapa, Bradman recalled that Masterton had been where the great Australian bowler Alan Davidson had completed the feat of taking all 10 wickets in an innings during a tour of New Zealand at the start of his international career, and asked if he could have a look at the ground.

Symes took him into the picturesque tree-surrounded Oueen Elizabeth II Park, as it is now known, to have a look and found schoolboys playing there and after a while the game stopped and all the players came to stand around the car to see Bradman.

Duncan Priest spoke of the occasion in which Bradman spoke at the 25th jubilee of the Wanderers Club in Wellington which was held in the Greenstone room in Cuba Street.

Sir Ron Brierley spoke at the lunch today about how he became very friendly with Bradman. They served on several boards together and after many of his playing contemporaries had pre-deceased him Bradman had become friendly with Brierley.

It was Brierley's company at the time, Industrial Equities Limited (IEL) that provided much of the money which funded the Bradman Museum at Bowral.

International match referee and former New Zealand captain John Reid also related some of his experiences of meeting with Bradman.

The president of Cricket Wellington, Don Neely described the lunch as a great success with many other contributions having been made.

Cricket Wellington now holds regular members' lunches with guest speakers, usually at the Basin Reserve.

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