After 30 years in the adrenaline-charged world of firefighting, Steve Oxford is enjoying the tranquility of painting in his art studio in Barrow, surrounded by brushes, paints and palettes, against the backdrop of his garden.

Painting a far cry from the fast-paced work in the Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service where he and his colleagues faced challenges on a daily basis, notably at the scene of the M1 airliner crash near Kegworth in 1989 and rescuing a man trapped in a quarry hopper, for which he received a Queen’s Commendation for Bravery in 2001.

These days, the fire is within him, in the form of a passion for painting that started at the age of 9, when he painted a heron. Since then, he has painted when time permitted, but since retiring, he has had more time for art.

He shows me a picture album of paintings, featuring a range of subjects over the years, including landscapes, flowers, dancers, underwater scenes, a fire rescue scene, large animals, people’s pets and a little girl in a meadow, his daughter, Carly. Many were requests from family and friends, others were used for greetings cards and charities, including one that raised thousands of pounds for Loros.

What is remarkable is that he is entirely self-taught - in the early days he used books for guidance, but, more recently, he’s been able to learn from tutorials on YouTube.

“It’s largely trial and error,” he says. “I worked with watercolours, then acrylics and have recently moved to oils, which I prefer, because the colours are richer and easier to blend.”

He now has several paintings, including local landscapes, in Gallery 18 in Loughborough and three in the Peter Baker Fine Art gallery in Uppingham.

He paints from photographs but recently painted a scene near Beacon Hill that was done ‘en plein air’ (outdoors) and he plans to do more, weather permitting.

I first came across Steve’s work when I saw a beautiful painting of the River Soar on ‘Spotted: Barrow Upon Soar’ on Facebook, which had attracted plenty of attention. His Facebook and Instagram pages have since taken off and he now has hundreds of followers.

“It was overwhelming," says Steve. “I was new to social media, and I wasn’t sure what I was doing but I had to learn fast!”

Steve, who lives with his wife, Sarah, in central Barrow, says he likes to paint every day and the more he paints the more he improves.  Even away from his easel, he is mulling over his works in his thoughts. He tells me that one night he was lying awake trying to solve a painting problem and the only way to deal with it was to get up and paint - which he did at 2am - getting back into bed at 4 and going back to sleep.

Here’s to many more years of beautiful artwork and late-night inspiration!

You can see Steve’s work on Instagram @steveoxfordartist or on Facebook @steveoxfordartist

Lindsay Ord