The Gurkha Welfare Trust the Prince of Wales. The Trust has three Vice Patrons; Field Marshal the Lord Bramall of Bushfield KG GCB OBE MC JP DL, Field Marshal Sir John Chapple GCB CBE DL and Joanna Lumley OBE. The Chairman of the Board of Trustees is Lieutenant General Nick Pope CBE. Each year, by tradition, all serving officers and other ranks in the Brigade of Gurkhas contribute a day's pay to the Trust. In 1969, it was realised that a great number of Gurkha soldiers and their dependants or widows in Nepal faced destitution in old age. Many of these soldiers had served
Gurkha Gurkha The Gurkhas or Gorkhas () with endonym Gorkhali () are soldiers native to the Indian subcontinent of Nepalese nationality and ethnic Nepalis of Indian nationality recruited for the British Army, Nepalese Army, Indian Army, Gurkha Contingent Singapore, Gurkha Reserve Unit Brunei, UN peacekeeping force and war zones around the world. Historically, the terms "Gurkha" and "Gorkhali" were synonymous with "Nepali", which originates from the hill principality Gorkha Kingdom, from which the Kingdom of Nepal expanded under Prithivi Narayan Shah. The name may be traced to the medieval Hindu warrior-saint Guru Gorakhnath who has a historic shrine in Gorkha. The