Hundreds of people gathered today for a parade to honour the return of four British soldiers killed in a single day’s violence in Afghanistan.

The men’s bodies were flown to RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire, where their families attended a private ceremony before the cortege drove through Wootton Bassett.

Sergeant Ben Ross, 34, from 173 Provost Company, 3rd Regiment, Royal Military Police, and Corporal Kumar Pun, 31, from the 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, were killed by a suicide bomber during a patrol in Gereshk, Helmand province on May 7.

Rifleman Adrian Sheldon, 25, from 2nd Battalion The Rifles, died in an explosion when travelling in a Jackal vehicle near Sangin in Helmand province, that evening.

Corporal Sean Binnie, 22, from the Black Watch, 3rd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland, was killed in a firefight with insurgents near Musa Qaleh in Helmand province, on the same day. Cpl Binnie was part of the Battle Group mentoring the Afghan National Army.

The quartet of coffins were driven slowly along the High Street, as the crowd of shoppers, local dignitaries and former soldiers and a veteran Gurkha filled the pavement.

Steve Bucknell, the Mayor of Wootton Bassett, said: “It is all very, very sad. I said in my inaugural speech that I hoped we wouldn't have to do this again. It is also galling that here we are welcoming a Gurkha back while a lot of us don’t understand the Government’s attitude to Gurkhas who have served this country.

“The Government appears to let others live here, but not the Gurkhas. We’d rather have Gurkhas than shirkers.”

But ex-Royal Gurkha Rifleman Maita Limbu, 44, said it was not the place to discuss politics but to honour the dead.

“It’s not about politics here. We are just saying thank you and welcome home.”

Retired veteran James Archer, 57, who served in the Scots Guards and air dispatch, had come from working a night shift to be on the streets today.

Mr Archer, from Swindon, said it was the 16th time he had attended a repatriation in Wootton Bassett.

“There’s not enough respect for soldiers. If only you could take the spirit here in Wootton Bassett and connect it with the rest of the country,” he said.

The latest arrival of fallen troops comes after the announcement that the Afghanistan campaign claimed another British Army soldier.

An officer with the 1st Battalion, The Welsh Guards, died in Birmingham’s Selly Oak Hospital yesterday after being shot in Helmand Province on Saturday, the Ministry of Defence said.

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