• Furry eco favourites – The Wombles
The first Wombles book was published 50 years ago but with today’s emphasis on conservation, JD Savage thinks the furry recycling pioneers are more relevant than ever!
The Wombles have their origins on Boxing Day in the late Sixties, when writer Elizabeth Beresford’s children needed to let off steam. She took them to Wimbledon Common to play, where her delighted daughter said “It’s marvellous on Wombledon Common!” The idea of local creatures called Wombles was born, and when she asked the children what they should do, they both agreed: clean up the litter! When Beresford got home, she wrote detailed notes on the Wombles’ behaviour and historical background, and it soon felt like they’d always existed.
She based the characters on her own family. They included born-worrier Tobermory, the Womble cook Madame Cholet, lazy and greedy Orinoco, young Wellington and centuries-old Great Uncle Bulgaria. Their maze-like burrow beneath Wimbledon Common was a hive of activity, where they recycled our waste in ingenious ways. Beresford wrote her first Wombles book in just four-and-a-half days and her publisher took just three days to accept it, publishing it in 1968. Back then, the environment and conservationism weren’t watchwords like today, and Beresford said she felt that the world needed the Wombles. But it took TV to turn them into a true phenomenon…
WOmbling TV STaRS
The Wombles’ first TV appearance was as a story on Jackanory, before they got their own series on BBC1 in February 1973. Animated by Ivor Wood and narrated
by Bernard Cribbins, 30 episodes were shown in the old ‘Magic Roundabout’ slot of 5.40pm. The series was a huge success worldwide, selling to many countries, including Hong Kong, Sweden and New Zealand. But who’d have expected the Wombles to become a pop sensation, too?
POP STARS!
Struggling singer-songwriter Mike Batt wrote the Wombles theme The Wombling Song (“Underground, over-ground, wombling free…”) on his houseboat’s fold-up piano, and its lyrics on the train to London the next day. He waived his £200 fee to secure character rights for further songs. He spent five days on the road in an Orinoco costume promoting that first single, turning up at local radio stations and record shops, often uninvited – and sometimes mistaken for a mouse! His hard work paid off. Eight Top 40 hits and four gold albums followed in the space of 18 months, outselling The Bay City Rollers at one point and earning Batt enough to buy an electric blue Rolls Royce. The Wombles – humans in giant furry costumes – became Top of the Pops regulars. Hit singles included Remember You’re a Womble, Wombling Merry Christmas and Wombling White Tie and Tails.
PANTO DISASTER
The Wombles put a furry foot wrong though, with a hastily assembled package of nine stage pantos, performed around the UK in December 1974. The shows were a disaster from the moment the curtains parted to reveal a litter-strewn stage. The on-stage Wombles were criticised for being too thin and not knowing their lines, although, due to their head masks, they were almost inaudible anyway. The sets were cheap, children could see behind the scenes and even spotted a ‘Womble’ removing its head! In Liverpool, 300 people
stormed out, and theatre impresario Bill Kenwright was mobbed in the foyer by angry mothers. In Northern Ireland, mums clambered on stage to attack the cast and stage staff with handbags and umbrellas!
Mike Batt quit after this fiasco, but the Wombles’ popularity soared, and, in 1975, the annual turnover of Womble products was £17 million. They ranged from wind-up walking Wombles, to Womble soap and chocolate bars. A second successful TV series was also broadcast that year.
A movie ‘Wombling Free’, was released in 1978, starring Frances de La Tour and Bonnie Langford. The bizarre film starts with the
beginning of the world, and a Womble in the Garden of Eden picking up Adam’s tossed-away apple core! The Wombles had a TV revival in 1998 with a new ITV series and lots more merchandise, performed at Glastonbury Festival in 2011, and have recently been involved with new tidying campaigns. They’ve never gone away, so maybe Womblemania will break out again one day!