Sidney Boulter, Oxford’s former Chief Fire Officer, won the George Medal during a long and distinguished career in the fire service.

He was honoured for his work during the Second World War.

He was in charge of Woolwich Fire Station in London, which was hit three times in two months by German bombs.

The third attack wrecked the building and several lives were lost, but Mr Boulter and his team managed to save others.

Although he received the medal for the rescue work, he modestly insisted that it was shared by all those who helped on that fateful night.

Mr Boulter spent his early life in the Merchant Navy and it was by chance that he joined the fire service in 1937.

He once recalled: “I had just signed off from the merchant service and met a friend on the Thames Embankment. He suggested I should join the London Fire Brigade and I decided it might not be a bad idea.”

At that time, the brigade recruited only men from the services and paid them £3 10s for a 96-hour week.

In 1941, he became an instructor at the National Fire Service College at Brighton, then had a spell with the National Fire Service overseas contingent in France, Belgium and Germany.

After the war, he worked in Cardiff and Newport before moving in 1952 to Worcester as Deputy Chief Fire Officer.

He was appointed Chief Fire Officer of the Oxford City Brigade in 1962, succeeding Victor Fenn, and held the post until 1974 when the city and county brigades were amalgamated.

In his retirement, Mr Boulter had plenty to remind him of his fire service career.

While serving in London, he met his wife Vera, a wartime auxiliary firewoman, and his retirement gifts included his firemen’s axe mounted on a shield, two chrome sprinkler heads converted into an ashtray and a brass hosepipe nozzle made into a flower vase.