HUSBAND and wife team John and Teresa Chandler have been awarded partner of the year by Wiltshire Fire and Rescue service at its annual awards night.

As well as fire staff the couple were given their excellence award at a ceremony at fire headquarters in Manor House, Potterne, last Tuesday.

Mr and Mrs Chandler, of Five Lanes Farm, Potterne, have been supporters of the service’s rural safety team since it was first developed in 2008 and were nominated by Shaun Milton from the team.

They have allowed the service to use their farm for training and community events, and last weekend hosted the rural safety team’s first Farm Safety Day.

Mr Chandler, who has been at the farm since 1970, said: “It was a great night out and it was wonderful to find out that we had been nominated for such a prestigious award.

“We first got involved as the headquarters are quite close to us here in Potterne and fire and rescue staff come here to practise rescuing large animals.”

Also on the night long-service awards were given to eight firefighters and three members of staff based at the headquarters: Michelle Bond, Louise Fielding and Julie Matthews.

Firefighter Richard Lavens, from Devizes Station, joined Royal Mail at Chippenham sorting office in 1987 and when working at Swindon Mail Centre started his fire service career at Stratton Fire Station.

He later transferred to Devizes when he moved to a job at Devizes sorting office and now works in the admin office and responds to fire calls from there.

Chippenham station manager Jack Nicholson joined in September 1994 and was promoted to crew manager in 2001 and then watch manager in 2003.

Since becoming a station manager in 2005, he has managed eight fire stations across Wiltshire and currently works in technical fire safety as well as being the lead officer for fire investigation.

Watch manager Wayne Presley joined in 1995 as a retained firefighter at Marlborough Fire Station, following in his father’s footsteps, before become a full-time firefighter in 1999 working in Trowbridge and then Stratton.

In 2014 he was promoted to the role of watch manager and general instructor at the Training & Development Centre in Devizes but continues to be an on-call firefighter in Marlborough.

After a number of years of being involved socially with the station, Corsham crew manager Keith Shackleford successfully applied to be a retained firefighter in 1995, going on to the role of crew manager in July 2001.

Certificates of appreciation were also given to Fire Control and HR Shared Services, with a head of the community award given to Marlborough fire station and an excellence award for outstanding contribution to Marlborough firefighter Neil Green.