Remember you’re a Womble

When I was a lad the Wombles were a kids’ TV institution. The programme was also massively ahead of its time with its strong environmental message.

Now the litterpicking creatures have inspired a modern-day phenomenon.

All over the country – including Peterborough – Womble groups have been set up by community-minded residents to clean up their neighbourhoods.

They are a very much of their time because in UK 2021 the great divide is not so much the have and the have-nots (although that still exists to an obscene extent) it’s more the cares and the care-nots.

Of course you could argue it’s because we have a shocking disparity between the haves and the have nots that the cares and the care-nots have become necessary (in the formers’ case) and inevitable (in the latters’).

I have huge admiration for the new generation of Wombles and also those good people who are not members of any group but who walk around with litter pickers and bags cleaning up other people’s mess.

But their public spirited good works should not hide or deflect from the fact that we have a huge problem in this city (and country). Peterborough City Council and MP Paul Bristow have highlighted this issue, harsh penalties are available to the courts, yet the problem persists.

Perhaps it’s time for drastic action and threaten the litterlouts and flytippers with being locked in a room with Remember You’re A Womble being played on a loop at volume 10!