Stephen Lewis speaks to John Taylor the former Norton postman who took the DSS to the European Court and won - and who has just put the high office of the Lord Mayor of York in its place

It was many years ago, but the local council officials who waged war against postman John Taylor over the air raid shelter in his garden are probably still wincing at the memory. It was over 30 years ago, to be precise. Mr Taylor had moved into the house in Norton where he still lives with his wife Ann - a house with a large garden.

"I'm a very keen gardener," he says. "But there was a great big reinforced concrete air-raid shelter in the front garden and I thought I cannot cultivate the garden with this here."

He contacted the then Norton Urban District Council for permission to get rid of it: but was told it had to stay. "They said they wanted it for a future war," he says. "There were air raid shelters scattered all over Norton."

He accepted their decision: until a little girl fell off a similar shelter in the garden of the house opposite. Then he marched back to the council.

"I said I'm going to get that thing down, be warned," he recalls, with the glint of battle in his eye.

He took a hammer and chisel and demolished his shelter himself - a feat which got him into the pages of the local newspapers and onto the radio. The council later employed contractors to demolish the rest of the shelters.

There have been many fights since: because if there is one thing guaranteed to make Mr Taylor see red, it is red tape.

Not all his battles have been winning ones. He did wage a winning war against bureaucrats in 1987 to be allowed to take up a job as a Keep Britain Tidy officer. They tried to tell him he did not qualify for the community programme job because his occupational pension meant his income was too high. With newly-elected Ryedale MP John Greenway's help he took it all the way to the Department of Employment. Again, his victory made headlines.

But in 1991 a high-profile poll tax rebellion failed after Ryedale District Council took him to court for non-payment of part of the 1990-1991 charge.

In typical John Taylor fashion, however, he turned defeat into victory - by sending a cheque for the arrears to Prime Minister John Major and suggesting the PM settle his bill with Ryedale for him. Once more, he made the headlines.

It's that dogged determination to stick to his guns that brought him his greatest victory of all so far - and saw him make not only local but national headlines too.

Last December he emerged victorious from the European Court with a landmark ruling on winter fuel payments which the Department of Social Security estimates will cost it £85 million a year in extra payments.

Thanks to Mr Taylor's efforts - and the efforts of campaign group Parity, of which he's an executive committee member and which backed him in his European Court fight - more than one and a half million British men aged between 60 and 65 will receive backdated winter fuel payments: payments the Government was seeking to deny them until the age of 65.

Not bad going for a former postman from Norton. So where does this 65-year-old get his energy from?

"Somebody has to stand up and shout," he says. "Red tape makes me angry. I believe things should be clearly put to people, easy to understand. Officials shouldn't be hiding behind so many regulations."

It was a simple enough matter that saw Mr Taylor embark on his European journey. He believes it is unfair that women should reach retirement age at 60, while men have to wait until they are 65.

"A woman receives her state pension after 39 contributing years," he says. "A man must work for 44 years. A woman lives longer than a man, so therefore a man is putting more in and getting less out. There's a lot of guys out there, aged between 60 and 65, who should be fighting."

It's not only men who are disadvantaged by the UK's blatantly discriminatory retirement laws, though, he points out.

Thousands of women now aged between 60 and 65 do not qualify for a pension despite being of pensionable age because they devoted their lives to bringing up children and looking after their families instead of going out to work, he says. That means they only receive a pension when their husband reaches 65 and qualifies for a pension himself.

The inequality in retirement age is eventually going to be addressed - though not before 2010 at the earliest - by the 1995 Pensions Act. Typically of Government though, Mr Taylor says, the solution being offered is the wrong one. Instead of equalising the retirement age at 60, the act will equalise it at 65 - so everybody will lose out, instead of just the men.

'What they are doing is robbing women of five years pension," he says witheringly. "Does everybody want to be working until 65? And where are all the jobs going to be?"

Mr Taylor's victory in the European Courts has at least ended the discrimination over winter fuel payments: but it was, he admits, only a little victory in a much bigger war.

Receiving a state pension automatically qualifies you for a range of other benefits - winter fuel payments were one, others include widow's benefits and travel tokens. So until the retirement age is equalised, he says, men - and women who rely on their husbands for their pensions - will continue to be discriminated against.

He will continue to do his bit. Already, the tireless campaigner has succeeded in convincing three museums in Ryedale to change their admission policies so entry fees are reduced for those over 60, rather than for pensioners.

He has also taken to task the organisers of the Lord Mayor of York's Christmas nosh-up - advertised as being for pensioners. Mr Taylor pointed out it should have been advertised for the over-60s.

Now he has two bigger targets in his sights - the Government's plans to introduce discriminatory new half-price bus passes to all pensioners (which means women qualify at 60, men at 65) under the new Transport Act; and widow's benefits.

"When a man loses his wife he doesn't get widow's benefits," he says. "We want widowers treated equally."

He is not, he says, about to give up doing what he does best - giving petty bureaucrats a hard time. For the first time, he allows a flash of humour to show through.

"If I gave up, what the hell would I find to do with my time?" he says.

What indeed? The bureaucrats may wish he'd stick to gardening: but it's a safe bet the one-and-a-half million men who qualify for winter fuel payments because of him do not.