Six members of the Armed Forces Pension Group, led by Sid West, of Thorpe, held banners calling for a fair deal for service personnel who left the forces before April 5, 1975.

Those who left before that date without having served a "full" military career of 22 years received no Army pension, while those who left just days later receive a pension, however long they served.

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Mr West, 71, who was left without a pension despite serving more than 17 years in the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers, said: "I was told by the organisers that we would not be welcome on the march with our banners because they did not want it to become political. But I told them that whether they liked it or not we would be there and we would hold up our banners but not go on the march.

"They told us at the last minute that if we wanted we could go on the march, and we would be welcome next year, so they backed down.

"We decided to stand there and ask the public if they think all ex-servicemen and women should get equal pension rights and we collected 80 signatures.

"Every single person we asked signed the petition. They all thought we were all getting    pensions."

Their coup for the day came when a Deputy Lord Lieutenant of West Yorkshire, Major Wroe, MBE and his son both agreed to sign their petition.

Mr West added: "We are going to soldier on until we have a million signatures.

"New people are contacting us to join all the time and we are slowly spreading the word across the UK and abroad where there are thousands of ex-servicemen and women.

"We are hoping to double our membership in the next year from the 4,000 we have now."

For more information, visit the Armed Forces Pension Group's website www.afpg.info