The son of Felix and Martha Burns, research would suggest, and the brother of John Crawford Burns. Robert was born at Gourock and educated locally before he joined a Glasgow accountants where he earned 5 shillings a week.
After the war he moved to England and had a career in entertainment management. He was ticket controller of the London Empire Exhibition in 1924, a manager of the 1925 Paris World Exhibition and for a spell managed Bertam Mills Circus. After his retirement he ran a hotel in Eastbourne with his wife, in 1964 became involved in a charity which cared for homeless people and was president of the WW1 Veterans Association for 5 years. When asked what kept him going for so long Robert replied that after “seeing all his mates drop around him” at Loos “nothing was going to upset him, if he lived through that, then life could not upset him or worry him. A tot of whisky and a few cigars” wouldn't hurt him. Robert lived until 104 and died 2 weeks before his 105th birthday. He was cremated with full military honours— one of the last survivors of the 75 Cameron Highlanders out of 800 who had survived the Battle of the Somme.
“At over 100 and with a hip replacement, he could still walk for miles and chat up the ladies“
Robert enlisted into the army on November 6th 1914 and as he told them he wanted to be in a kilted regiment was sent to Inverness to join the Cameron Highlanders. He was in France with the British Expeditionary Force by Christmas.
Robert saw action at the Battle of Loos in 1915 and the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Burns recalled how at the Somme it was clear “everything was not going to plan. Shells were exploding everywhere among us. It was sheer bloody murder”. At the Somme 57,470 British men were killed or wounded but Robert managed to survive this without a scratch as he had the battle of Loos. However, in December 1916 his luck ran out and he was wounded on the front line. He was sent to recuperate at Invergordon where his shorthand and typing skills led him to become Col. Mackintosh’s secretary and due to this was not returned to the front lines when his wounds healed. During the war he kept a shorthand diary which, on the day of Armistice, November 11th 1918, he put into an envelope and did not open again for 67 years. This dairy has been published entitled “Once a Cameron Highlander”.
