A FORMER motorhead had the ride of his life... aged 84.

Dick Smith lives at Milton Lodge care home in Colchester which runs a Make a Wish initiative to help make residents’ wishes come true.

The home holds fundraisers to finance the scheme and is also part of Tesco’s Wishing Washing Line programme, where elderly residents hang up their wishes and people offer to grant them.

Mr Smith’s wish on the washing line was to ride a motorbike as he used to in his youth.

Due to his age he is unable to actually ride a motorbike but Mr Smith, who usually walks with a frame, had the next best thing.

Home resident Peter Quantlett, of Virago Star Owners Club, contacted the home to say he would bring a fleet of ten motorbikes to the home in Ipswich Road and Dick was able to ride on the back of one of them.

Clare Martin, who works at the home, said Dick had had an amazing time and was thrilled to be chosen.

She said: “They had a helmet and coat they brought for him, and they had a specially adapted bike for someone his age.

“He sat on the back of a Yamaha bike with a sissy bar on the back so he could sit back and enjoy the ride.

“He was really looking forward to it, in his younger days he used to ride bikes.

“He couldn’t believe it.”

She added: “It was really very kind of the resident to make Dick’s wish come true.

“He really enjoyed himself and we were just happy to see it happen.”

Dick is not the only one to have his wish come true this year.

His wife, Gladys, 82, found national fame after she revealed she was a superfan of the singer Michael Bolton.

She appeared on ITV’s Lorraine show and her idol invited her to one of his UK concerts after reading about her in the Gazette.

Gladys is going to see Michael in concert at the Cliffs Pavilion in Southend on October 23 and hopes to meet the star backstage.