Exclusive: from our man in Nepal with Joanna Lumley
Exclusive by Chris
Denham and Mary Louis
An overwhelming welcome awaited Gurkha
champion and actress Joanna Lumley when she arrived in Nepal on
Sunday.
KM Group journalist Chris Denham, who is
travelling with her party, has described how the actress was mobbed
to KentOnline.
Ms Lumley, whose father served with the
6th Gurkha Rifles, has headed
the campaign to enable Gurkha veterans to have the right to settle
in Britain.
She is accompanied on her week-long trip to
Nepal to meet Gurkha veterans and their families, by Shepway
councillor Peter Carroll, from Folkestone, where the Royal Gurkha
Rifles are based.
Cllr Carroll is a lynchpin of the Gurkha
Justice Campaign and has been involved with it since the outset in
2003, when he was asked to help a Gurkha veteran facing deportation
after 22 years’ service in the British Army.
KM business development editor Chris Denham
has been covering the campaign, and is with the Kent
contingent in Nepal.
He described the experience of arriving at
Kathmandu’s Tribuhuvan International Airport.
Speaking three hours later, at 1.30pm GMT
today, Chris said: “It was incredible, there were thousands of
people there in the rain all waving banners.
“They said things like ‘Welcome To Nepal
Goddess Joanna’, ‘I owe Joanna’, ‘Goddess of Nepal’.
“I have never seen anything like it, Joanna
Lumley was mobbed. People were putting garlands around her neck and
around Peter Carroll’s.
“She was besieged. They had to use an army
escort to get Joanna out of there. There were lots of police
there as well.
“To be honest I was a bit scared that it was
going to get out of hand.
“This is one of the poorest places on earth,
I have never seen such poverty and some of the guys greeting Joanna
were old and injured.
“Our arrival was the most amazing
experience.”
In May, former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith
announced that all ex-Gurkhas who have served more than four years
in the British Army, have earned the right to settle here in the UK
if they wish.
Sunday, July 26 2009
Rating: 4/5 (3 votes cast!)