DISCWORLD author Terry Pratchett will be joined by Salisbury MP Robert Key in a march on Downing Street tomorrow, to present a petition demanding an increase in funding for research into Alzheimer’s disease.

Pratchett, who lives near Salisbury, is campaigning on behalf of the UK’s leading dementia research charity, the Alzheimer’s Research Trust.

The author, who has himself been diagnosed with the disease, said: “We are facing, to use the term said to me by one of the leading US researchers, a ‘worldwide tsunami’ of Alzheimer's and other dementia diseases.

“I intend to scream and harangue while there is time.

Robert Key’s mother, who lived in Wilton, died from Alzheimer’s. He said: “My family was so grateful to the Salisbury Branch of the Alzheimer’s Society for all the help they gave our family in our time of need.

“I met Terry in September and promised to march with him to No 10. He is a wonderful author and a very generous human being.

“I share his outrage that we spend so little on research into a killer disease that affects hundreds of families in Salisbury and south Wiltshire.”

Alzheimer’s and other dementia diseases affect 700,000 people in the UK but receive just three per cent of government medical research funding.