A leave to "Blighty"

The hopes of being granted a leave pass to “Blighty” was often a point of contention amongst front line troops. Those in the trenches felt they were constantly losing out to the officers and troops in support roles – those who weren’t doing the fighting; instead occupying “bomb-proof jobs” always seemed to be getting the leave. In addition to being passed up by officers, (who as per their rank were afforded more frequent periods of leave), the luck of the draw never seemed to fall in the favour of the “old timers” or “originals”. Victor Wheeler of the 5 (Calgary) Battalion gave the following account resenting the distribution of leave in his unit:

‘The Originals, we who had enlisted when the Battalion had first been organized, had the numbers 434 as the first three digits of our serial dog-tag numbers. We were jealously proud of having the lowest numbers in the Battalion and resented privileges being accorded to men who enlisted much later while members of the original contingent were passed over… Time after time I had been “due” for a leave to Blighty, but each time it was my turn, someone had been given priority. I pencilled [sic] : “I was again up for a Blighty leave, but some ‘435er’ got ahead of me…” ‘ (Wheeler, The 50 Battalion In No Man’s Land, p. 132).

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Blighty – the origin of this word is unclear and various explanations exist. It appears to be a corruption of the Hindi word ‘bilayati’ or ‘bilaik’, meaning a foreign place or country, or from the Arabic term ‘beladi’ meaning ‘my own country’ (Pegler, Soldiers’ Songs And Slang of The Great War, p. 38).  In British India during the 1800’s “Blighty” became a term of endearment for home and/or English things. This carried through to the First World War, and a number of secondary uses evolved depending on the context as a noun, verb or adjective, “such as ‘This is like real Blighty bread.’ “, “a Blighty one”, and a “Blighty bag” (Pegler, Soldiers’ Songs And Slang of The Great War, p. 39).

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Bomb-Proof Job – referred to any one of a myriad of support roles that men could be posted to in the rear areas, usually far from danger and consequently “bomb-proof”. Those who made a military career of “Bomb-Proof Jobs” during the First World War were usually disliked by frontline troops – they were often seen as cheats who received frequent and unwarranted leave passes, broke into and stole the men’s mail parcels, and who often received official recognition and medals “for bravery” whilst miles from danger.

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