IT was, fittingly, a welcome home for heroes.

Loved ones of Yorkshire soldiers just back from Afghanistan gave them a tearful homecoming as they returned to Britain.

Hundreds of family and friends cheered and clapped as 190 soldiers from the 2nd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment arrived back at base following a six-month tour of war-torn Helmand Province.

After months of news of death and casualties, the soldiers were enveloped by wives, fathers, mothers and children, many crying with relief at their safe return back to Weeton Barracks in Lancashire.

The Battalion are based there, but many of the troops are from Huddersfield and the rest of Yorkshire.

Every member of the Battalion came back from the six-month tour, in which they served in Helmand and in Musah Qaleh.

But eight troops were wounded, three of them seriously.

Sgt Carl Peterson, 29, was kissed by his five-year-old son Ashton, wearing matching khaki military fatigues, as he scooped him up in arms.

Sgt Peterson, from Scarborough, said: “It is a nice surprise, because I didn’t know they were going to be here.

“It’s probably been my toughest tour in Afghanistan so far, just the stuff that’s happened, people getting blown up, people getting killed.”

His wife, Rachel, 28, said: “I got Ashton’s uniform for the freedom parade through Scarborough, but he wanted the same as his dad, so I went on the internet and got him a matching one.

“We have a calendar at home and every morning he gets up and marks another day off closer to his dad coming home.

“It’s always scary waiting for him to come, we just have to keep busy, keep some sort of normality for the sake of Ashton really.”

Private Geoff Nicholson, 24, was hugged and kissed by his fiancee Vicky Lewis, 23, and their five-year-old daughter Abigail, accompanied by the soldier’s proud parents Geoff senior and mother Margaret.

His mother said: “It is horrible waiting, it’s horrible listening to the news and watching those other one’s come home. I try to ignore it, but I can’t help it.”

The battalion deployed to Afghanistan in September 2009 to begin its third operational tour of the country in five years.

They were given the critical task of training and mentoring the fledgling Afghan National Army (ANA) as both take on the Taliban in some of Helmand’s most dangerous areas.