Actor greeted by well-wishers in first visit to Nepal after she helped overturn government ruling on Gurkha veterans

Joanna Lumley received a rapturous welcome in Kathmandu today on her first visit to Nepal after leading an extraordinary campaign that forced the government into a humiliating climbdown over Gurkha veterans.

Hundreds of Ghurkas and well-wishers turned out to cheer the 63-year actor as she and her party arrived at Tribhuvan international airport.

“My friends of Nepal, I am your family coming to Nepal for the first time. I want to thank you so much. I want to say in the time-honored cry, ‘Ayo Gurkhali!’” Lumley told the crowd from the top of her car, reciting the soldiers’ traditional battle cry.

The crowd, who had waited for hours, offered the Absolutely Fabulous star Buddhist prayer scarves and marigold garlands. Many brandished signs that read “Joanna Lumley, daughter of Nepal” and “Ayo goddess Joanna” or “Here comes goddess Joanna”.

Lumley, whose late father was an officer in the Gurkha regiment, said a great injustice had been rectified when the government capitulated under the onslaught of the Lumley campaign in May and said all Gurkha veterans with four years’ service would be allowed to move to the UK. Before the government’s change of policy, only those who retired after 1997, when the Gurkhas were rebased from Hong Kong to Britain, were eligible. Gurkhas say there are about 26,000 ex-soldiers in Nepal who get a British pension.

Speaking from Heathrow before her departure, Lumley said: “It’s thrilling, it really is. We were met by the most wonderful group of Gurkhas outside Terminal Three, with silk scarves and bunches of flowers. It’s just incredible. I’ve never been to Nepal before, and this is really going to be just stunning. I feel so humbled by the fact I’m going to meet so many ex-Gurkhas and their families and see where they are and how they live.”

During her six-day trip, Lumley is scheduled to meet President Ram Baran Yadav and Madhav Kumar, the prime minister of Nepal.

Organisers of the visit say they expect thousands of veterans to travel to meet her, many of them walking on foot for days from remote areas of the country. “She is like a goddess to the Gurkhas,” said Falklands war veteran Gyanendra Rai. Rai was one of several Gurkhas who was refused the right to settle in Britain, despite fighting for the British in 1982 and being seriously injured.

“I don’t have the words to describe how happy I am that Joanna Lumley is coming to Nepal,” he said.

The Gurkhas have been part of the British army for almost 200 years and more than 45,000 have died in British uniform. Around 3,500 currently serve in the British army, including in Afghanistan.

Lumley is accompanied by Gurkha justice campaigner Peter Carroll, a Folkestone councillor, who approached Lumley after a woman in Kent tapped him on the shoulder and suggested he ask her to get involved, he said, adding: “The rest is history.”

“The campaign has been very long, from 2004 to 2009, and now we are making a different journey,” he said before leaving Britain. “It is nice to be sent off like this, and it will be nice to be received. We are so excited.

The people we are going to meet were a big part of the campaign, so it will be quite emotional.”