Leeds Cenotaph service mourns army cuts

The small-scale demonstrations, which involved parents of serving soldiers, were held in several cities including Glasgow, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester, Newcastle, Cardiff and Southampton.

A protest was also carried out at the Cenotaph in central London.

In Southampton, three former servicemen gathered to hold a two-minute silence at the Hampshire city’s cenotaph.

Local organiser Stephen Martin, 57, who served in the Royal Artillery Corps, said: “The Government is planning to cut 30,000 troops by 2020 and, being an ex-serviceman myself, I feel it is unnecessary as currently there are more people leaving than joining up, so if we take into account natural wastage we would get the same result without disbanding regiments.”

He added: “We know there are wars in Afghanistan and problems in Iraq and Syria and we never know when we are going to be called to a conflict.”

In Leicester, around 10 people gathered at the war memorial in Victoria Park where they said prayers for soldiers and held a two-minute silence.

Neil McKinnon, who was a corporal from 1964 to 1976 before being demobbed, laid a wreath of yellow flowers at the foot of the memorial.

He said he attended the vigil in protest at the cuts and the proposed amalgamation of regiments which, he said, meant “losing the history and the general family feel of six regiments altogether”.

He said: “These cuts will have a devastating effect on the morale of the troops. Not just the cuts but the way the troops are being treated. They are being treated as a stop-gap measure for this Government, for anything they got wrong.”