内容摘要："This diagnosis is even more painful if you're told your cancer is incurable.

"This diagnosis is even more painful if you're told your cancer is incurable.

Others who applied at the same time were given a discharge date in 1972."You're told when you're going. [Your discharge date] was not disclosed until some time later. There was nothing I could do about it," Mr Williams said.

Mr Williams and his wife Wendy believe about 400 men were discharged in the same 'first wave' as him, with about 2,600 going in the 'second wave' in 1972, receiving a substantially improved pension.Mrs Williams said: "What did this 400 do that was so wrong they had to be discriminated against financially?"She added that the extra money would have made a "vast difference" to their lives.

The couple launched a series of appeals to various official bodies once they realised what had happened.In May 1984, Mr Williams was told by the MOD that both his and his brother-in-law's pension "are correct" and the disparity was due to "a pay rise for CPO's [Chief Petty Officers] in the intervening two years which is reflected in the basic pension awarded".

He continued to fight his case throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

In 1998, the Armed Forces Personnel Administration Agency told Mr Williams that in the period between the two phases, "changes were made [to the military pension] but these changes were not retrospective" and that his pension reflected his "full and correct entitlement"."I think he liked to be the centre of attention, in a pub he would tell great stories and people would buy him drinks, but I don't think he was known for a temper in any way.

"[His wife] Caitlin had the temper and she would give him a right hiding."Actress and writer Ruth Jones has been awarded this year's Hay Festival medal for drama.

The Gavin and Stacey co-creator was honoured in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, where she was speaking about her new novel.War Horse author Michael Morpurgo won the fiction medal, while British-Turkish novelist Elif Shafak won the medal for prose.