By Cheryl Wood

A BRIDE-TO-BE whose Zimbabwean mother had been refused a visa to attend her big day has been granted her wish after her story appeared The Courier.

Catherine Dunford was distraught at the thought of her mother Shariwa not being there to see her tie the knot with Hugh Martin in St Andrews on December 5.

But yesterday, as The Courier revealed her predicament, PhD student Catherine, of Cupar, received the phone call she had been praying for.

An entrance clearance manager from the UK Border Agency told her the case had been reviewed and granted her mother her visiting visa.

Delighted Catherine (25) thanked The Courier for its intervention, which she said must have helped in overturning the original refusal.

She said, “It means the world to me to have my mother there.

“What bride wouldn’t want their mother there on the best day of her life?”

Cautiously, she added, “I won’t quite believe it until I see the stamp on her passport and she’s here, but I’m so happy that someone has listened.”

Catherine, whose late father was British and moved to Africa in the 1950s, was born and brought up in Zimbabwe.

She moved to the UK in 1999 and has British citizenship.

She came to Scotland to study at St Andrews University, where she met Hugh (37), a former student who works in the university’s registration department, two years ago.

The couple are to marry in a civil ceremony in the university’s Lower College Hall.

They were devastated when Shariwa’s visa application was turned down.

Catherine said the UK Border Agency believed her mother would want to stay in the UK once she had left Zimbabwe.

She said, “My mother had the chance to come here when she was married to my father and she didn’t want to.

“She is very involved with her church. Her family and her entire life are in Zimbabwe.”

St Andrews University Student Association and university rector Kevin Dunion wrote letters of support to the UK Border Agency of the Home Office.

A Home Office spokesman said yesterday, “We do take into account compassionate circumstances and it looks like that is what has happened here, so she shall go to the ball!”