Anna Bella Durie repatriated her soldier
son’s remains from France after WW I. [Photo: City of Toronto Archives]

Undying love, Part 1: A grieving mother secrets her Great War soldier son’s remains home to Canada

STORY BY STEPHEN J. THORNE

In the dark of a summer’s night in 1925, four shadowy figures—two women and two men—stole into the Loos British Cemetery in Loos-en-Gohelle, France, dug up grave no. 19 in plot 20, row G, broke open one end of the coffin, dragged out the remains therein, and made off with them in a sack.

The bones were those of Captain William Arthur Peel Durie, a former Toronto bank clerk who had commanded ‘A’ Company, 58th (Central Ontario) Battalion. He had fought at Vimy Ridge, Passchendaele and Hill 70. The women were his sister Helen and his doting and, the evidence suggests, difficult mother, Anna Bella Durie.

Anna recognized the remains of the son she called her “poor darling bunny” by the boots she had bought him for Christmas just days before he died.

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• Remembering Mynarski: A marker and a broken treeline at VR-A’s crash site
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Canadian crew members of 159 Squadron, Royal Air Force, in Burma on March 6, 1945.
[DND/PL-60366]

WW II researcher on Canadian airmen in Burma

STORY BY ALEX BOWERS

Canadian researcher Norma Graham understands that in the world of history, not least that surrounding Canada’s centuries-old military heritage, you’re a student for life, always learning and open to new ideas—and never admitting to knowing it all.

For years, the retired librarian from southern Ontario had fostered an interest in the country’s wartime efforts. It wasn’t until 2020, however, that she discovered a large and growing online community of WW II history buffs that had coalesced around the podcast “We Have Ways of Making You Talk.” Starring British historian James Holland and comedian Al Murray discussing various related topics, Graham had indeed found her people, later vowing to attend their annual festival in England.

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• The British Home Children who fought for Canada
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