WITH a 92-year-old ‘stalwart’ of his community, a veteran police officer and a brave, ‘firefighting’ teenager who saved his village hall among their number, the winners of this year’s High Sheriff of Oxfordshire Awards were a truly impressive bunch.

More than 100 nominations were submitted for this year’s awards – held at County Hall in Oxford on March 1 – with 14 outstanding individuals receiving the accolades.

Teenagers are more often on the receiving end of criticism rather than praise, but 19-year-old Max Lea’s fast thinking in the face of danger landed him the High Sheriff’s award for Bravery.

Max and his mum Sue were driving home to Woodcote from Henley one evening last September when they spotted Woodcote Village Hall in flames.

Max said: “I told my mum to stop the car and get my father, as I knew he would know what to do to help tackle the fire.

“I could see the source of the fire was a wooden storage box by the side of the hall and this had set fire to the large plastic bins along the hall’s wall, so I moved the bins as quickly as I could and dragged them away.

“Then I ran to Church Farm (the opposite building) to get water and buckets. The first bucket made almost no difference but after a few buckets the flames were dampening.”

Villagers joined Max in hauling water to the fire and managed to extinguish it just before the fire brigade arrived.

Max, who hopes to join the fire service, said: “We are very proud of our village hall and I was not about to watch it burn, so I didn’t really think about the danger. I wasn’t scared, I just acted and once I did, friends started to help.”

Hailed a hero, Max was nominated for the High Sheriff’s award by Christopher Quinton, chairman of Woodcote Village Hall management committee, for saving the hall and enabling the Village Festival to go ahead as planned the next day.

Now a student at Southampton University, he said: “The award ceremony was fantastic. I felt so proud to receive the bravery award, although compared to what the other people at the evening have given to our community, I did very little.”