She may have saved the world as Purdey from The New Avengers, but Joanna Lumley can surely never have dreamed of such a hero’s welcome to a strange land.

More than a thousand Gurkha veterans and their families braved the monsoon rain to greet the 63-year-old actress at Kathmandu’s airport yesterday. They came to express the gratitude — even veneration — they feel for the former model after she fought the British Government and won them the right to settle in Britain.

Known simply as “Joanna” to the ex-servicemen, many of whom said they now regard her as a daughter, she had never been to the tiny, mountainous Himalayan state before. Yet her “victory tour” was described as a homecoming. The crowd held placards that read “Ayo Goddess Joanna” — “the Goddess Joanna is coming”.

Within, it seemed, seconds of appearing, the actress was festooned with marigold garlands and sacred silk scarves. “We were met with such friendship and affection,” she said. “It was quite wonderful.”

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The first to greet her was Krishna Kumar Rai, 53, vice-president of the Gurkha Army Ex-Servicemen’s Organisation, who was seriously wounded by Argentine artillery fire when he fought for Britain in the Falklands conflict in 1982. He served for 13 years in the 1st Battalion, The 7th Gurkha Rifles, and is partly paralysed from his injury. He survived after being given blood from fellow British fighters. “You see, I have British blood running through me,” he said.

Nevertheless he was refused the right to stay in Britain three years ago. “The Home Office said I had no close ties to the UK,” he explained. After that rebuff he became one of several ex-soldiers to demand a judicial review, calling for the rules that refused Gurkhas who retired before 1997 the right to live in Britain be overturned.

Started in 2003, the Gurkhas’ campaign had failed to gain momentum until Ms Lumley lent her support last year and wasted no time in taking the Government to task. After she met Gordon Brown, he said that he would examine the issue personally.

Her tackling of Phil Woolas — in which the Home Office minister was seen squirming during an exchange caught on camera — has become a YouTube favourite. In May the Government caved in and announced that all Gurkha veterans who had served at least four years in the Army could apply for residency in Britain. Kumar Rai plans to move to Ealing, where he hopes to obtain NHS treatment for his injuries.

Many of those who gathered yesterday had fought for Britain across the globe, only to be told that they had no right to settle there. They included Madam Gurung, who served as a Gurkha for 24 years and retired in 1993. Denied permission to work in Britain while he appealed against an order to deport him, he was left homeless and had to rely on Royal British Legion food vouchers to survive.

“I became very depressed,” he said. “I don’t think I was treated properly . . . The Home Office told me I was a liar. They said that I had no ties with the UK.”

Ms Lumley said that her father, who was a major in the 6th Gurkha Rifles and wrote in his war diaries of being rescued in the heat of battle in the Second World War by one of his Nepalese soldiers, would have been “overwhelmed with shame and fury” at such a story.

Shyam Kumar Rai, 48, who retired from the Gurkha Transport Regiment in 1990, is one of the hundreds now planning to leave Nepal. “In the UK, if I get sick I will be able to find a doctor, not like here,” he said. “I think I will live longer in Britain.”

Others wanted to leave the unstable political situation in Nepal, which is one of the world’s poorest countries, and to win better access to education for their children.

During a six-day visit to Nepal, Ms Lumley will meet the President and Prime Minister at the King’s palace. She will also visit three Gurkha communities in remote villages.

Also in Kathmandu was Peter Carroll, a road haulage boss, who founded the Gurkha Justice Campaign. He asked Ms Lumley to help after a passer-by made the suggestion while he was gathering signatures for a petition. The campaign was labelled a “slick political operation” by Home Office officials.

Mr Carroll said that it actually comprised himself, “an actress and three bolshie Irish lawyers”. He has a favourite saying: “Some people say that a small group of committed people can change the world. In reality that’s all that ever does.”

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