Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Doctor Charles Clark Burman from Whitehaven married Isabella Maude Thompson, the daughter of the vicar of Lucker, in Belford in 1878 and ran a successful practice with Dr. Broadbent in the town, where most of their eleven children were born. Barbara, Eveline, Moorhouse, Charles, Percival, Laura and Joseph were all born there, Isabella, the oldest, Aidan, Sydney and Dorothy were born in Bamburgh.

The family moved to live in Bondgate Without, Alnwick around 1886 and Aidan was born on 7th March 1891. He was educated at the Duke’s School, Alnwick and from January 1908 to April 1909 at Ellesmere College (then St. Oswald’s School) in Shropshire, where he played hockey, football and cricket, won the 1909 Prize for Drawing and enlisted in the School Cadet Corps.

Aidan emigrated to Canada in September 1910 making for Saskatoon and a life as a farmer, applying for a Homestead Grant in the summer of 1912. Even though Canadian farmers were at that time exempt from conscription on 20th August 1916 Aidan enlisted with the 243rd Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Force in Saskatoon, giving his father in Alnwick as his next of kin; mentioning his time in the school Cadet Corps he became Private 1012509.

Promoted to Lance Corporal in October and full Corporal in January 1917, Aidan arrived in Liverpool with the Battalion on 10th June 1917 on board the SS Olympic and a posting to Bramshott, Hampshire, where the 243rd was absorbed into the 15th Reserve Battalion. Posted to the 5th Battalion in August, Aidan reverted to the rank of Private and joined them at Petit Servins, France at the beginning of October, and then moved with them into Flanders.

On 9th November 1917 the Battalion moved into Brigade Support overlooking Passchendaele and took over part of the front line at Meetcheele, over three days the Battalion sustained 320 casualties. One of them was Private Burman who had a wound to his back, for which he spent a month in hospital in Boulogne.

Having heard that his father died over Christmas, Private Burman was granted leave to return home, not rejoining his unit until the end of January. In hospital again with influenza at the end of June 1918, he would have been back with his battalion to join them the Last 100 Days Offensive.

After the Armistice the Battalion marched to Germany as part of the Army of Occupation, and then on 15th March 1919, returned to England. On 10th April the Battalion sailed for Canada and then on to Regina, Alberta for demobilization on the 24th April 1919.

Aidan returned to Saskatoon and in the 1930s married Scottish born Rhoda Halliday, a nurse at River View Nursing Home in Saskatoon. He died on 31st January 1978 and is buried in Woodland Cemetery, Saskatoon with his wife Rhoda who died in 1983.

Aidan Alfred Burman is remembered in Alnwick on A11.03, A11.09, and on the Roll of Honour at Ellesmere College, Shropshire.