Going for a Burton

I grew up in Blackpool,during ww2 many radio ops were trained in the town.Above the Burtons tailors shop was a big room used for final tests. I always thought that if they failed then they had gone for a Burton.
It seems there are many other expalnations.

This is the reason for the expression I’ve seen too. I can not find it at the moment, but somewhere in my collection of books I’ve got the autobiography of an RAF wireless operator, and he was trained above that Burtons tailor shop in Blackpool. From memory, he said that those who failed their tests had to go through the tailor shop on the way out and not through the normal exit from the training room. The reason being that it was considered bad for the morale of guys waiting outside the room for their test, to see how many failed! That was the reason this W/O gave for the exression, but like you say scotavia, it seems there are many more.

burton

I grew up in Blackpool,during ww2 many radio ops were trained in the town.Above the Burtons tailors shop was a big room used for final tests. I always thought that if they failed then they had gone for a Burton.
It seems there are many other expalnations.

The phrase : “kicked the bucket” was used as well but I am not sure during WWII

Cees

In British parlance perhaps it pertains to buying the proverbial pint or indeed the suit? Or maybe it’s just an adaptation of the American term ‘buying the farm’ as you suggest. I think that’s quite likely.

Perhaps one of our American posters can shed more light on this?

Regards,

kev35

So when they used the phrase “he’s bought it ” is that a reference to buying the farm?

I’ve heard both the beer origin and Burton’s suits before.

If I remember correctly ‘buying the farm’ is a reference to the GI Bill which paid families 10,000 dollars for the loss of their loved one thereby enabling the family to, literally, buy the farm as it were.

Regards,

kev35

Googled it and came up with this.

From Gone For A Burton. I begin by offering one explanation for the phrase ‘gone for a Burton’. There are various explanations. Which one is the correct one, in a way, does not matter.

A note on the title: This book, Gone For A Burton: 1945-2000 follows Going For A Burton: 1870-1945. Many of the people in that first half of my history of modern Burton feature in this later half, but you can read this book on its own. Chapters in this book such as Statutes cover the whole period 1870 to 2000. I admit that 1945 was rather an artificial half-way mark because, as I argue inside, the turning point in Burton came in the mid-1960s, when changes in the breweries coincided with, and partly caused, changes in almost every field of town life. Why did I call the first book Going and the more up to date book Gone? Because so many of Burton’s buildings and ways of life have gone, within living memory. Those buildings, jobs and attitudes that gave Burton its character (for better and for worse) dated from the mid-Victorian era when Burton sprang from a small market town to one of the world capitals of brewing. The year 2000 is as good a date as any to finish my book, because Burton has to work out an original direction, with the breweries little more than a visitor attraction for out-of-towners interested in ‘heritage’. That 21st century direction – and whether Burton’s leaders and ordinary people alike can come up with a new direction – would be material for another book.

Airmen in the Second World War said a comrade had ‘gone for a Burton’ if he had died – a sort of gallows humour that avoided the truth; the dead man had ‘gone in the drink’ – hit the sea; or he had plain gone. The phrase ‘Gone for a Burton’ probably came from a prewar advert for Burton beer; if someone was missing from a group, they had gone ‘for a Burton’. The airmen meant no disrespect to the dead; rather, the living knew how cheap life was in war.
In Melbourne in 1998 I met John Hughes, an Englishman who served as a Bomber Command navigator in the Second World War, and who retired to Australia. He told this story of a wartime coffin shunted onto a connecting train at Derby without the escort party knowing:

JOHN HUGHES: In March 1945 our skipper had an ear infection and our bomber crew were stood down for a short time. We were flying Lancasters over Germany and were quite happy with the idea of being taken off ops [operations], if only for a week. The adjutant thought that we would make a good escort for a dead rear gunner. He had returned to base but was badly shot up and died. We were to accompany him on his last journey to his home town in the north of England. We were stationed near Lincoln and the journey was by train via Derby where we were to transfer the coffin to a main line express from London to Carlisle. We unloaded our man at Derby and awaited the express. It was not due for about an hour so we had a quick consultative meeting and it was unanimously agreed to partake of some light lunch in the refreshment room. The rear gunner in the coffin did not disagree and he was left on platform one in peace. Whilst we were trying out the local ale after our light lunch we heard the station announcer give details of a train which was about to depart for Burton-on-Trent. We emerged from the refreshment rooms only to find that the coffin was missing. Our engineer from Manchester, with that dour expression bred from many soakings in a wet climate, thought he knew the answer: “He must have heard the train announcement and has gone for a Burton, all on his own and twice in one week!”

Brian.

According to my dictionary of RAF Slang (a £1 buy in a ‘bookscene’ cheapie bookshop about 10 years ago – and fabulous) there are two theories:

1. The Burtons Ale theory expounded above OR
2. The fact that demob suits were made by Burtons the tailors and/or it was said that you had the option of being buried either in a uniform or in civvies – hence gone for a suit from Burtons.

There are other theories if you google it but I’m sticking to the two above, cos they’re in my RAF book and I’m small minded… 🙂

TT

I heard it was based on a pre-war advert for beer with the slogan ‘Gone for a Burton’ – for example if a group of pilots used it, it was kind of avoiding the subject of death, with ‘gone for a burton’ meaning they’d gone into the drink (sea).

That is the explanation I had heard.

Other euphemisms included ‘Getting the chop’ and I think the Americans said, ‘buying a farm’ etc.

DS

Amazingly, it still seems to be in use by teenagers and upwards. I heard one of my sons using it and asked him if he knew of its origin. He didn’t of course so I appraised him of it.

I heard it was based on a pre-war advert for beer with the slogan ‘Gone for a Burton’ – for example if a group of pilots used it, it was kind of avoiding the subject of death, with ‘gone for a burton’ meaning they’d gone into the drink (sea).

Yes, that’s one of two explanations I’ve been given, but which is the correct one. Or are both of them valid?

The way I heard it was something to do with “certain offices” above a Burton’s Tailors