WHIFFS, PUFFS & SNUFFS

Casually, but with the instinct of an oldtime newspaperman making a scoop, Lord Beaverbrook referred last week in his report on British aircraft production to a new British fighter: the Whirlwind (specifications still secret). And he stated: "All the fighters and all the bombers that we lost during the months the battle has raged over Britain have been paid for in full, completely and entirely, by public subscription."

That new name and that proud statement brought gusty joy to a hilarious new sodality lately war-born in, of all places, the Argentine. In Buenos Aires two months ago a group of young Britons and Anglo-Argentines, mostly junior executives in Ernst, Berg & Cia. (advertising agency), formed, half in fun and half in earnest, the Fellowship of the Bellows. Aim: "to raise the wind" for purchasing Hurricane and other fighter planes for the R. A. F. Method: each member contributes one Argentine centavo (4-c-) for each Axis plane downed during the month. Thus, in October the Fellowship's 3,000 members each paid in 288 centavos or 2.88 pesos (72-c-) for the 288 enemy planes notched up by the R. A. F. that month. This totaled some $2,100 or just over -L-500. By the end of November the membership was 15,000. The November score was 293 enemy planes, the take better than -L-2,500. (A Hurricane or Spitfire costs about -L-5,000.) By the end of December the Buenos Aires boosters expect 20,000 members. Meantime their Fellowship of the Bellows has blown into Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile.

Aside from willingness to contribute, prime requisite for F. o. B. membership is to be "a fellow being with a bellow feeling" to enjoy windy punning and complex ritual. Payment of one peso initiation fee makes the joiner a Whiff (all non-joiners are Snuffs, ritualistically defined as "infinitely worse than a cross-eyed toad with athlete's foot"). A Whiff becomes a Puff when he pays his first month's levy. A Puff becomes a Gust when, after his entry, 1,000 planes have been shot down and he has paid in ten pesos. When 5,000 planes are down and 50 pesos paid in, a Gust becomes a Hurricane. When 10,000 planes are down and 100 pesos paid, the Order of the Bellows is bestowed. But no joiner may "blow himself to Puffdom and other exalted ranks" by prepayment or overpayment of dues. All contributions are gladly accepted but the contributor's promotion can proceed only at the pace set for him by the R. A. F. after he signs up.

Servants of the Bellows, "to be blown into office annually unless blown out," are High Wind (President) William Rumboll of Ernst, Berg & Cia.; Whirlwinds (Secretaries) George Ward and Alan Murray, both of London & South American Investment Trust; Receiver of Windfalls (Treasurer) and Keeper of the Windbag (Assistant Treasurer) Colin Shearer and George Collins, respectively.

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