The presence of ABC cricket commentator Jim Maxwell and his British colleague, Jonathon Agnew, brought the “full-house” up at Shindy’s Inn, Louth, on Friday night, December 19.

The pair were travelling a circuit that also included Orange and Moree in a quest to bring “The Ashes out West” and raise awareness of Angel Flights. This charity engages volunteers who fly, using their own planes, patients to larger centres for treatment and in some cases, life-saving missions.

“We love the bush, the heartbeat of our nation, and everywhere we go we are surrounded by people who regard us as family,” Jim said with his typical humility.

“We know that the ABC, through ‘Landline’ and the ‘Country Hour’, keeps people in remote locations connected,” he added.

In fact, Jim said it was like a reunion when he visited Orange a few weeks ago, and at the small town on the Darling River last week.

“I met blokes in Orange I had been to school with and played sport against in Sydney over 50 years ago!”

He related a story of walking into Shindy’s Inn on a typical hot, windy and dust-filled Friday afternoon.

"One bloke, Bill Moncrieff had flown in from Canberra. He is still playing cricket in the Over 70s and says there are other blokes I’d been to school with as well.”

Jim was reluctant to mention a name but when a former teammate walked into the pub, he recalled a fellow saying to him rather irreverently,

“David Benn was the slowest opening bowler ever!”

David grew up in Hungerford but now lives in Wagga Wagga. He was at school with Jim at Cranbrook. Classic radio voices; classy gentlemen spreading the word for a great cause.