WHAT ARE GREMLINS?

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 38, 12 January 1943, Page 8

WHAT ARE GREMLINS?

INVENTIONS OF THE R.A.F

N.Z. PILOTS JINGLE

So much is now heard about the activities of the gremlins, the elfin folk Avh.o delight in. playing tricks upon pilots of the R.A.F. when well up in 'the clouds that we take pleasure in publishing an extract from a letter written by a local lad wlio is now serving in the R.A.F. and who has apparently made their acquaintance. His; letter reads:— I "This is a poem composed by a R.A.F. bard—about the Gremlins, those goblins, which play pranks with planes and pilots. Has many possibilities of rivalling "Mademoisell from Armentiers." When you're seven miles up in the heaveris That's a hell p$ e [lonely spot, And its 50 degrees below zero Which isn't exactly hot.. When you're frozen blue like your Spitfire, And you're scared mosquito pink, When you're thousands of miles from nowhere And there's, nothing below but the drink — It's then you'll sec the Gremlins. Green and gamboge and gold, Male and female and neuter, Gremlins both young and old. It's no use trying to dodge them, The lessons you've learned in the link Won't help you evade the Gremlins Though you boost and you dive and you jink. The. white ones wiggle your wing tips, The male ones muddle your maps. The green ones guzzle your glycol, The females flutter your flaps, The pink ones perch on j'our persex And. dance, pirouettes on your prop. There's a special middle aged Gremlin Who'll spin on your stick like a top, They'll freeze up your camera shutters, They'll bend and they'll break and they'll batter, They'll insert toasting forks in your ej'es—" At this point the R.A.F. bard gave up, but others are said, to be busy compiling endless versions. Here are a few of mine:— "When its 40 degrees below zero, And you're twiddling dials and knobs, You're listening hard, for a message But your writing's a mess of blobs. You long for a smoke, (but you mustn't) You reach for your package of gum, But the Gremlin has been there before you, The greeneyed son-of-a-gun. When its 8 o'clock in the morning And the sun hasn't shown up yet You reel out the trailing aerial And a striped one jumps out of your set. They'll sit on the hands of your stop watch And dance on the knob of your key, And, the green one (Sitting beside you Drives a needle, clean through your knee. They'll mess around with your frequency Till you're hundreds of cycles out, They'll wait till you pick up your station, Then they whistle and scream and shout. Then there's one little devil we sometimes see He can beat a bullet for quickness But he's much too high up thero in the sky In that region of altitude sickness. I've seen the beautiful Gremlin Queen And you sure would like to meet her She combs her hair as she sits just there Right on the input meter.