DAVID James has been fighting fires in Tenbury and the Teme Valley for as long as many people can remember.

Now after more than 40 years in the job and at the age of 64 he has finally called time on his vital work.

During that time he has attended more than 5,000 incidents and given the nature of the work has seen things that most of us would not wish to witness.

The work of a firefighter is not just about putting out fires and he has also done many other things from releasing people locked in buildings and trapped in lifts to taking off rings that have got stuck on fingers.

David was also a figurehead during the floods of 2007 when he and his team helped to pump out flooded buildings and cellars in the town.

But when he is not working as a firefighter David James is also well known in the area for his work as a painter and decorator.

That is because he is what is known as a ‘retained’ firefighter that forms the core of the service in rural areas.

These are people that are employed by the fire service on a part-time basis that involves them being available to be called when there is an incident.

Retained firefighters are paid a basic salary that is topped up with an on-call payment every time that they are called to an incident.

It is an arrangement that can work well but that has resulted in long-term problems with the recruitment of firefighters both in Hereford and Worcester and in south Shropshire.

Trying to recruit new people to join the team at Tenbury Fire Station has been one of the big jobs for David James for as long as he can remember and for long periods of time the fire station in Burford that serves Tenbury has been under strength.

At the heart of the problem is the requirement that an on-call firefighter must live or work within a short travel time of the fire station. This is normally five minutes and therefore presents a real problem especially in thinly populated rural areas.

But added to this is the fact that for a firefighter who works, the employer has to be willing and able to let the person drop everything at the ringing of a telephone or bleep of a pager.

For people like David James who works as a self-employed painter and decorator this may not be a problem but for people in more traditional employment it is more problematic.

A teacher can hardly walk out on a class, a doctor or nurse cannot down tools in the middle of a surgical procedure or a bank clerk simply abandon the counter.

However, the Fire Service wants to work with employers and has a number of different options. Training is provided and will help people to gain a new set of skills and be better team workers.

Fire fighters can be men and women and there is no retirement age although a good level of physical fitness is needed. The minimum age is 18.