Legion Scotland, the country’s biggest membership veterans’ charity is calling for volunteers in Ayrshire to help provide friendship to ex-servicemen and women.

New volunteers will spend time with veterans of all ages and backgrounds who might otherwise have no one.

In the Ayrshire area Legion Scotland has 13 branches and one club and a team of eight befrienders.

William McMaster, has been the Well Being coordinator for the area for 14 months and has seen first-hand the benefits of befriending for veterans and their families.

He said:  “There is immense satisfaction in doing this job.

"You can see the expression on someone’s face when they realise that you are there for them.

"They may not have had the chance to ‘really’ talk with someone for weeks.”  Befrienders will help by giving veterans someone to talk to and will also be able to put them in touch with the right people to support with specialist issues like housing.   William, who is a veteran of the Scots Guards and served in the Falklands added: “The trouble is veterans struggling with health or any other issues probably won’t ask for help.

"You are trained to just get on with things.  “As befrienders we have to get out there and find our veterans, start the conversation, let them know we are there.”  For more information contact Stephen Baird (National Wellbeing Coordinator): on 0131 550 1560 or email s.baird@legionscotland.org.uk.