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The Wombles

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This article refers to the children's TV programme, not the radical anarchist WOMBLES group.
The Wombles are fictional characters created by British author Elisabeth Beresford, originally appearing in a series of children's novels from 1968.

Wombles are pointy-nosed furry creatures (though the characters in the original books resembled ordinary 'teddy bears') that live in burrows, where they help the environment by recycling rubbish in useful and ingenious ways. This "green" message was ahead of its time in the 1970s, though shared at the time by the popular science-fiction programme Doctor Who. Although Wombles live in every country in the world, the stories focus on the life of the Wimbledon Common burrow in London. Beresford reportedly invented the name "Womble" when one of her children referred to Wimbledon Common as "Wombledon Common"; "womble" is, to some, an inherently funny word. "Wombles" is also a nickname of AFC Wimbledon. Fans have many terrace songs in which "Wombles" are referred to.

Contents

Characters

All of the Wombles have names taken from an old Atlas; the main characters are:

Great Uncle Bulgaria is the Wombles' leader. He is very old and wise: at the time of the stories (1968 - 1976), he was at least 310 years old, as, according to the song "Minuetto Allegretto", he was 'a lad' in 1780. He will be often found reading his newspaper sitting in his rocking chair. He regales the young wombles with stories from his life and world history; young Wombles never get bored of his stories.

He is named after the country of Bulgaria.

Tobermory is the engineer and handyman womble, and informally Great Uncle Bulgaria's right-hand womble. He is happiest when fixing things and enjoys his work.

He is named after the town of Tobermory, capital of the Isle of Mull in Scotland.

Orinoco is an overweight womble with a great love of food. He is Bungo's best friend.

He is named after the river Orinoco in South America.

Bungo is over-enthusiastic and bossy. He is named after Bungo Province in eastern Japan. Tomsk is an athletic Womble. He is named after the city of Tomsk in Russia. Wellington is a scientifically inclined Womble. He is named after Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. Madame Cholet is the Wombles' cook. She is named after the town of Cholet in western France. Alderney is Madame Cholet's assistant. She is named after the island of Alderney in the English Channel. Miss Adelaide is the Womble schoolmistress. She is named after the city of Adelaide in Australia. Stepney is a Womble from the East End of London, presumably named after Stepney, the borough of his birth. He is notable for his dreadlocks.

In the first book, Bungo was the youngest and least experienced of the team, and the story is mostly viewed through his eyes. Afterwards Wellington (who was not introduced until the second book) took over the role of "new boy". Alderney and Adelaide appeared in the earlier books, but were not included in the original TV series of the 1970s. Alderney was re-introduced in the later TV shows of the 1990s (the Channel Island of Alderney was actually Elizabeth Beresford's home of the time), along with Stepney (who appeared in none of the earlier versions). The Womble songs (detailed later) introduced a further character, Cousin Yellowstone.

Children's Novels

There were a total of five novels:

(The latter two books are less well known than the original three, perhaps because they appeared after the successful TV series.) In The Wandering Wombles, the setting moved from Wimbledon Common to Hyde Park in central London. However The Wombles to the Rescue saw them return to Wimbledon Common. The books also contain several concepts which were dropped in the later TV version (see below). For example, we learn that below a certain age, all Wombles are nameless. Upon his coming of age, a Womble chooses his name from Great Uncle Bulgaria's atlas, after which he leaves Miss Adelaide's "Womblegarten" and enters the communal work of the burrow (which is mostly clearing up and recycling human refuse). The life expectancy of a womble is over 200 years, with some reaching 300, which would make them the longest-lived of all animal species.

Beresford also wrote a collection of short stories entitled The Invisible Womble and Other Stories (1973), in which the original Wimbledon Common setting was restored. Although based on episodes from the TV series, these stories occasionally refer to events in the novels.

In addition to these books, a great many annuals, picture-books and children's early readers have been published over the years, some of which were also written by Elisabeth Beresford.

TV and Film

The Wombles was adapted as a British children's television programme, The Wombles, a series of five-minute stop-motion episodes produced by FilmFair for the BBC and voiced by Bernard Cribbins. The first series aired in 1973 and the second in 1975, sixty episodes in all. In 1977, a feature-length live-action movie Wombling Free appeared, starring David Tomlinson and Bonnie Langford.

The Wombles also appeared at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, with a short film as an Interval Act. After the film was over, one of the wombles presented Katie Boyle, the woman presenting the program with a flower, which to she replied "Of course, I will never forget that I am a Womble now."

The Wombles were re-invented from 1998 as a cartoon after FilmFair was acquired by the Canadian company Cinar Films in 1996, a number of new geographically-named Wombles were introduced.

The original television series remained popular with children in the eighties. However, the original "green" message backfired: newspapers reported at the time that children were deliberately throwing litter onto the real Wimbledon Common in the hope of seeing a Womble emerge to pick it up.

The Wombles appear in the film version of Breakfast on Pluto (2005).

Music

Songwriter and producer Mike Batt wrote the series' theme tune, and later went on to perform and produce a number of successful novelty singles (and albums) as The Wombles. He and his band appeared on music shows dressed in full Womble costumes, which were sweltering in the heat of the studios. On one edition of Top of the Pops, the costumes were filled by members of Steeleye Span.

Their hits were:

Batt's success with the Wombles (they were the band with most weeks in the singles charts in the UK in 1974) tended to overshadow his genuine songwriting talents.

Wombles In America

Columbia records in the USA released thier first album "Remember Youre A Womble" in 1974, which recieved a warm 2 star review from rock critic Dave Marsh in the first edition of "Rolling Stone's Record Guide". Columba released 2 singles from the album. "Non-Stop Wombling Summer Party" recieved regional Top 40 radio airplay and reached #55 on Billboards Hot 100. Wombles episodes were shown on CBS's "Captain Kangaroo" childrens show in 1974-5. Since then, there has been few if any attempts to bring the Wombles Music or Television successes to the USA.

The Borribles

Of tangential connection to The Wombles are The Borrible Trilogy books: The Borribles, The Borribles Go For Broke and [[The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis]]. Written by Michael de Larrabeiti, the books feature a group of perpetual children known as the Borribles who live an underground existence on the streets of London. In the first book the Borribles battle a group of giant, intelligent rats known as the Rumbles, who many readers have suggested are intended to represent the Wombles.

External links

 

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