A SCOTS author and illustrator has penned a poignant story about homelessness and friendship, to highlight the plight of those with no home.

Debi Gliori, who is based near Haddington, in East Lothian, wrote A Cat Called Waverley to coincide with next week’s World Homelessness Day.

In it she tells of a little cat that belongs to no-one, until he is befriended and looked after by a young man called Donald. The two get along famously, but when Donald is sent away to fight in a distant war, the cat waits for him to return at Edinburgh’s Waverley Station.

He waits and waits … for so long that travellers and railway staff name him Waverley, and look after him. However, he is waiting for Donald – until one day, years later, the cat hears a voice he recognises.

READ MORE: What has become of the Labour Movement that inspired great working-class plays?

Warfare has drastically changed Donald’s life, but when the pair are reunited, their world suddenly seems brighter and more hopeful.

Gliori’s story is based on a real person, Darren Greenfield, a homeless war veteran who used to sit on the pavement at the top of Waverley Steps – one of the many for whom war was not over when the fighting was done.

“I wrote and illustrated A Cat Called Waverley for Darren, but also for all the countless homeless people in our world,” said Gliori, who has written around 70 books.

“I wrote it to say ‘you are not forgotten. You are the yardstick by which we measure our own kindness and humanity’. We all have the same need for shelter, for food and for people to care about us. Therefore, we are all responsible for ensuring that every one of us has a safe place that we can call ‘home’.”