KATHMANDU: Unman Singh Gurung, 70, was excited while the British government allowed the former Gurkha soldiers like himself to settle in the faraway land for which they had fought in their youth. Gurung also envisaged a happy retirement in England, with free housing from a local council and a decent state pension.

Today those dreams are shattered. Penniless, he has spent months stranded in a mildewed attic room above an empty shop in Aldershot, Hampshire.

According to DailyMail, Gurung speaks no English, so his chances of work are next to nil. Yet he took out an unaffordable loan and sold everything — his family house, farmland, cows and goats — to raise the money to get there. Now deep in debt, he could not afford a flight home even if he wanted to.

In Nepal, his wife Laxmi, 56, son Sunil, 26, and daughter Phul, 16, face an equally uncertain future. They have no money to fly to Britain or to pay for the three UK visas they need to settle here.

Gurung says: “The GAESO officials in Nepal told me that I would get a job easily and the money for housing and living costs would arrive immediately. I was told not to worry. I would be able to send for my family and we would all love the UK.” The truth is so different. Gurkhas in their 60s and 70s are living in dingy rooms — particularly in towns around their former garrison base near Aldershot — where they cannot afford the rent.

There are many other ex-gurkhas like Gurung. In nearby Farnborough, ex-Gurkha and farmer Kul Bahadur Ale, 63, is also struggling four months after arriving. He said: “Britain is a developed country where I deserve free housing and a pension. GAESO told me they were my rights. I have not received a penny.”

Annabelle Fuller of the Army Benevolent Fund said: “They come with no idea of the expense of living in a country where the basic cost of setting up a rented home is £2,000.”

Dr Hugh Milroy, chief executive of UK charity Veterans’ Aid for homeless ex-soldiers, says he recently found one Gurkha begging in London. “He had not eaten. He’d only been here for five days and was struggling already. He kept saying ‘house, house’.”

“These veterans are arriving with no work skills and no idea of life here. There are no council homes. Even if there were, they need to be able to afford to run that home.” Folkestone town councillor Dhan Gurung, who was the first Gurkha to take office in Britain, told KentNews that ministers should have looked at how to deal with visas when the settlement rights were agreed.

“These new rights have not been implemented properly by the government,” he said. Shepway Lib Dem councillor Peter Carroll said he hopes the government will deal with the situation sensibly.

In all, 2,600 new UK settlement visas were granted to Gurkhas, their wives and relatives between the United Kingdom government climbdown in May and the end of December last year.

More than 2,110 are still being processed. The UK Ministry of Defence predicts the final headcount for arrivals will top 30,000.