Tributes have been paid to a mother-of-two who grew up in Gorleston and died after the motorbike she was driving was involved in a collision with a van in Wales.

Rachel Spandler-Parsons, 44, died after the crash in Rhayader, Powys.

Her husband, Stuart Parsons, and their son, Jessie-Jay, were in a group of motorcycles on a pleasure ride to the area and she was riding a blue Suzuki.

Mrs Spandler-Parsons was from Gorleston and had gone to Cliff Park High School and then Great Yarmouth College of Further Education, where she studied cosmetics.

She had worked for a time at her father’s business LG Perfect Haulage run by Monty Spandler before moving from Gorleston in 1992.

She has been married to her husband for 12 years and they had been a couple for about 30 years after meeting in Ibiza in Spain.

She left Gorleston to move to Banbury, Oxfordshire, where she went on to have two children, Jessie Jay, 10 and Ellie-May 19.

She had worked at the Banbury Guardian newspaper and at the time of the accident, which happened on September 23, she worked at Thames Valley Police’s driving school section.

The couple were keen supporters of the Banbury Scooter Club and various motorbike groups, regularly raising money for good causes.

Paying tribute Mr Parsons said: “Rachel has been the perfect wife and mother. We gelled from the first moment we met. “She was the liveliest, bubbliest, happiest person.

“If you were sad, you wouldn’t be for long with Rachel around. She just had that presence.”

He said they spent every weekend riding motorbikes with their friends.

Her mother Judith Gray, who lives in Corton, near Lowestoft, said: “She was a beautiful and a wonderful girl. She was very much a free spirit.”

Mrs Spandler-Parsons had an elder brother Martin and an older sister Janette.

A fundraising page has been set up in her memory to raise funds for the air ambulance crew that tried to save her life and a dogs home as she loved animals.

Donations can be made at www.gofundme.com/rachel-spandlerparsons-fundA date has not yet been set for Mrs Spandler-Parsons’ funeral, but it will be at St Mary’s Church, Banbury, where she married.