Chris Biddle, founder of Service Dealer, and his wife Trish celebrated their Diamond Wedding Anniversary on 25 September and hosted a lunch at the Captain’s Club Hotel, Christchurch, Dorset for family and friends.

The occasion was also marked by personal best wishes on reaching the milestone from HM King Charles and Queen Camilla.

Now retired, Chris and Trish relocated this year from their long-time home in Salisbury to Southbourne on the Dorset coast, where they are only 100 yards from the outstanding 8-mile beach that stretches from Bournemouth to Hengistbury Head.

The couple were married 60 years ago in Andover when Trish was a staff nurse at a Salisbury hospital and Chris was working for tractor and groundscare dealership, A Brewer & Co (now C&O Tractors).

After leaving the dealership, Chris founded Service Dealer magazine in 1988, followed by Turf Professional ten years later, before selling the titles to Duncan Murray-Clarke’s LandPower Publications in 2016.

He was editor of Landwards, the professional journal of the Institution of Agricultural Engineers (IAgrE) for 12 years and produced printed publicity material for the Agricultural Engineers Association (AEA) and the British Agricultural and Garden Machinery Association (BAGMA).