Joanna Lumley. Courtesy of Daylife.com

In the UK, the force of Joanna Lumley has been causing a powerful stir. Political headlines in newspapers across the country, from the Telegraph and the Guardian to the Times document her continuing fight for The Gurkha Justice Campaign. Confronting everyone from immigration officers to the British Prime Minister himself, this refined damsel has become a force to be reckoned with.

Spanning a forty year career, 63-year-old Joanna Lumley is best known for her acting roles in British television series such as The New Avengers, Sapphire and Steel, Sensitive Skin, and more famously as the leggy, chain smoking, blond bombshell Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous.

However, Joanna Lumley’s on-screen characters are far removed from the humanitarian existence she leads day-to-day with charities such as ActionAid, Druk White Lotus School, The Born Free Foundation, MIND, SANE, and Sight Savers (just to name a few). Since 2008, Joanna Lumley has become the official face of the Gurkha Justice Campaign, lending her support to the continuous fight of Gurkha veterans to obtain the right to work and settle in Britain.

Born in Kashmir to parents Major James Rutherford Lumley (who served in the 6th Gurkha Rifles, a regiment of the British Indian Army) and Beatrice Rose Weir, Joanna grew up to become a noted animal rights campaigner and vegetarian. Beginning her studies in schools in Hong Kong and Malaysia, she then went to St. Mary’s in Sussex and the Lucie Clayton finishing school before eventually becoming a house model for the designer Jean Muir.

It seems, however, that her father’s career in the Gurkha Rifles was a path she was destined to follow. Since revealing that the life of her father was saved by a Gurkha solider during the Second World War whilst serving in Burma, she has made it her mission to assist and promote the Gurkha cause.

In a recent interview with the Guardian, she remarked, ’You have to feel more involved than just writing out a cheque. Charity is almost the wrong word–I think people are beginning to feel more responsible for the world.’

As Joanna Lumley continues to fight for what she believes in, the calls for damehood grow louder.