Motorbike enthusiast Victor Sallows made his final journey in a sidecar hearse from his home near Marlborough where he died last week to the crematorium at Swindon.

Mr Sallows, 70, who lived at Mildenhall, had been a leading member of the Marlborough Link group for many years and was a former chairman.

He had spent his working life, after doing National Service in the RAF, in the oil industry retiring at 59.

He was interested in all things mechanical,` said his wife, Joan, and was a member of a steam preservation group at Didcot.

As a retirement gift colleagues at Unipart paid for him to go on a steam locomotive driver’s course.

Mr Sallows had been a lifelong motorbike enthusiast and at one time had rebuilt a Rudge motorbike that he treasured.

On Friday his coffin was carried in a motorbike and sidecar hearse to Kingsdown Crematorium with his family following in the more traditional funeral cars.

The specially built sidecar hearse was provided by an Oxford company Motorcycle Funerals.

Mrs Sallows said she and their four children, Linda, Helen, Karen and Mark, decided on the unorthodox hearse because of his passion for motorbikes. She said: “He started riding motorbikes when he was 17, it was the way we got about in those days.”

Mrs Sallows said that in common with many other couples in the 1950s they even did their courting on two wheels.

“My husband started with off with a Rudge motorbike that he rebuilt himself and rode for years,” she said. “It was our means of travel until the children came along and then cars took over.”

Later Mr Sallows returned to motorbikes when his son became old enough to ride one.

“He went back to motor cycling when Mark was 17 and they shared a Ducatti motorcyle that Mark still uses,” she said.

Mr Sallows continued to ride motorbikes until about a year ago when his health prevented him carrying on.