Organiser Alicia Thompson, aged 32, estimated more than a couple of hundred Goths and other people proclaiming their right to be different made their point.

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"It was absolutely wonderful," she said. "There were so many people and afterwards people said we should do it every year and make it a day out."

By and large the public reaction was positive.

"There were quite a few people looking a bit horrified – I think they thought it was a Hallowe'en spectacle. But some old people were coming up to us and saying 'Well done' and wishing us all the best. That was a surprise.

"We think we got the point across."

The march started and finished in Devonshire Green, coinciding with similar events in places such as Newcastle and Plymouth.

It was a high-profile appeal for tolerance and, in particular, followed the murder last August of Sophie Lancaster in Bacup, Lancashire. She and her boyfriend were attacked because they were Goths.

Stephen Clark, aged 33, of Wincobank, said: "We are marching to promote the end of prejudice and to bring recognition that just because you look at little bit different you shouldn't be treated differently.

"Some people think we look a bit scary but we are only human. We have the same rights as everyone else and we just want an end to the bullying and prejudice. My partner was talking to a Goth in the Peace Gardens the other day and this girl was saying how her hair had been set on fire by some people at school. Apparently the teacher said to her that it was her own fault for looking like the devil's daughter."