Legendary jacket with links to Sir Don Bradman back in hands of rock group Masters Apprentices

A striped jacket that began its life in The Don’s Sheffield Shield side before becoming a part of SA rock history has finally been returned to its rightful home.

A jacket that began its life in Sir Donald Bradman’s Sheffield Shield side before becoming part of Masters Apprentices’ frontman Jim Keays’s stage outfit has finally been returned to its rightful home.

The distinctive striped Shield cricket blazer originally belonged to South Australia wicketkeeper Rolly Vaughton, who played alongside The Don in the late 1940s.

Vaughton’s son Brian, drummer in the Masters Apprentices, “borrowed” the jacket for his charismatic singer to wear on stage and in photo shoots. Conservative Adelaide in the 1960s, it seems, was no place to buy cutting edge menswear so the young rockers were forced to improvise.

“Menswear stores were the only places you could normally buy from, and in those days there was virtually no variety at all. - a few different coloured shirts, the same old style slacks and your typical brogue shoes,” Keays, who passed away in 2014, is on the record as saying.

“This was hardly acceptable for a young, new rock group out to be noticed, so something had to be invented. I wore army pants, a striped cricket blazer Brian Vaughton’s father had worn in the 40s, and a girl’s blouse.”

Brian Vaughton, Rick Morrison, Mick Bower, with the famous striped jacket and Gavin Webb re-create the famous picture of their younger selves. Picture: Supplied

That famous picture of their younger selves with frontman Jim Keays. Picture: Supplied

Brian says the band would regularly shop in the women’s sections of Adelaide’s department stores, which turned a few heads.

“I’d buy colourful skivvies and things like that,” he says. “People used to look at us a bit sideways.”

After the singer’s death Brian asked his widow Karin about the jacket, and she said it was “long gone”.

And it stayed long gone, until it turned up in a Melbourne auction house and caught the eye of keen collector Alex Mericka.

Mr Mericka knew exactly what it was, and recently turned up to a Masters studio session with the missing blazer.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw it, I nearly broke down in tears,” Brian says.

“It brought back some pretty strong feelings. The jacket’s finally come home.”

While Brian admits that the jacket wouldn’t fit him anymore, it will make an appearance on stage at some point when the band plays Adelaide Oval on February 20.

And he admits that the Vaughton family had a complicated with the hallowed field.

Dad dropped some bloke who played for Western Australia called Carmody when he was on two and he went on to make 198,” he laughs.

“And when I played for South Australia in the Claxton Shield baseball series at Adelaide Oval in 1971 a bloke hit one right at me at rightfield and I dropped it!

“We’re gonna rectify that when we play Adelaide Oval this month – I promise we won’t drop the ball.”

The Masters Apprentices and The Zep Boys, Adelaide Oval, February 20. ticketek.com.au