C.V. “Jim” Woolridge, the veteran commentator who is best known in cricket as “The Voice of Summer”, insists that he is not ready to throw in the proverbial towel just yet.

“I hope to continue commentating for as long as the good Lord spares life,” he said in the week that his service to the game received global recognition. “As long as you are mentally fit and physically able to perform the job, I think you should do so.”

The former Flatts wicketkeeper-batsman was absent from the commentary booth for all but two games last season after injuring himself in a fall. It broke a sequence of more than half a century of Woolridge, 87, being involved in broadcasting at Cup Match and the Eastern Counties, the cornerstones of the cricketing summer.

“It was the first time I had missed Cup Match and the county games since I started commentating about 53 years ago,” he said. “I would have loved to have been there because an awful lot of people rely on our coverage.

“We have many members of the community who have helped to give us all the good life that we enjoy today, that are sick and shut in, who rely on us to bring the cricket into their homes.”

Woolridge’s contributions to the local game have not gone unnoticed, with the International Cricket Council, the world governing body, announcing last week that he has been awarded a Lifetime Service Award.

“Everything I did in connection with the great game called cricket was something that came out of the left side of my chest: my heart,” he said. “I love the game. I do not know who was responsible for submitting my name and recommending me, but I appreciate it and just hope to be able to continue.” Woolridge commentated his first match in the Sixties, an Eastern Counties affair at Lord’s in St David’s, which he called from a window at St David’s Primary. “I was sharing the mic with Ronnie Evans, who has gone to his reward [passed away] now,” he said.

“Ronnie and I shared a window in the school and did the broadcast from there. “The game was sponsored by Mr Lee Rankin, who then was the proprietor of the Knick Knack Shop. After the first game, naturally, he was listed for all of the other games played down there in connection with the Eastern Counties because he, coming from St David’s, was so impressed with the job we fellows did he was on board until he went out of business.”

Woolridge was influential in having Cup Match broadcast in its entirety over the airwaves, a luxury many perhaps take for granted these days.

“I went to work with ZBM and I was the director of sales up there,” Woolridge added. “We only had about an hour of cricket on the first and second day of Cup Match in those days and, having gone around the various business establishments, the idea occurred to me that maybe we should try to broadcast the entire game.”

Woolridge pitched the idea to his manager, Gordon Robinson, who approved of it, on the condition that the former could solicit sponsorship to cover production costs. “I put the idea to him and he said, ‘If you can sell it, go ahead, let’s do it,’?” Woolridge said. “Lee Rankin was my first client from the Knick Knack Shop and, of course, eventually I had clients from up and down the Island.”

He added: “It was an automatic endorsement and, of course, I went a little step farther and was able to guarantee them they would be able to have their product or their company sold out there prior to the game. They got free game promotion and, of course, the usual commercials on the day of the game and the broadcast had the effect of building the game up.”

Woolridge admitted that there were those who were sceptical about investing in cricket broadcasting. “Some folks first thought it would not gel because it would take away from it,” he said. “But instead of that the opposite was true because I would give the game promotion ten days before it was held and break every three overs for a commercial and rotate it throughout the game.

“Everyone was guaranteed a fair shake plus the fact the number of people who enjoyed coming by and having a little chat and having their friends hear their promotion over the air.”

The absence of Woolridge from the airwaves last summer left many of his “friends” without a voice, but he promises to be back in 2014 as if he had never been away.