Wombling Free
December 25, 2010 12:43 PM Subscribe
Elizabeth Beresford MBE, creator of the Wombles, has passed away. Whether you're a fan of Elizabeth Beresford, her books (recent covers), the animated shorts (voiced by Bernard Cribbens), or the many, many, songs (by Mike Batt)- remember to keep recycling and a womblin'.
Make Good Use of Bad Rubbish. For instance, the Times:
[Her father] made his friend Walter de la Mare Liza’s godfather.posted by pracowity at 1:11 PM on December 25, 2010
“He was a nice man, very kind to me. He wrote me a poem but no one’s ever been able to read the writing. It’s framed and one day someone, probably from the British Museum, will decipher it but at the moment it’s an unknown de la Mare.”
In the Guardian sidebar of tweets, they had this:
Haroon_Siddique: From Wombles creator Elisabeth Beresford's bio: "in S Africa she enchanted 1000 Zulu warriors with Womble stories"! http://bit.ly/fM1d67
about 6 hours, 37 minutes ago
I couldn't get the page to load due to my lack of flash plugins, but it was the official Wombles website. I didn't know they had one! I had one called Orinoco (i picked that name because i loved the sound of it). I thought they were as forgotten as British Leyland or wildcat strikes, surely knowing what that is dates you? I'm 1972 vintage myself.
posted by maiamaia at 1:35 PM on December 25, 2010
Haroon_Siddique: From Wombles creator Elisabeth Beresford's bio: "in S Africa she enchanted 1000 Zulu warriors with Womble stories"! http://bit.ly/fM1d67
about 6 hours, 37 minutes ago
I couldn't get the page to load due to my lack of flash plugins, but it was the official Wombles website. I didn't know they had one! I had one called Orinoco (i picked that name because i loved the sound of it). I thought they were as forgotten as British Leyland or wildcat strikes, surely knowing what that is dates you? I'm 1972 vintage myself.
posted by maiamaia at 1:35 PM on December 25, 2010
In case anyone doesn't know what they were, they lived in burrows and collected litter off the common (think, park). Not as green as the Borrowers, therefore...
posted by maiamaia at 1:36 PM on December 25, 2010
posted by maiamaia at 1:36 PM on December 25, 2010
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posted by Joe in Australia at 1:40 PM on December 25, 2010
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:40 PM on December 25, 2010
maiamaia's bit.ly link goes to http://web.archive.org/web/20011208112828/http://www.wombles.tv/pages/fmain.htm
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:57 PM on December 25, 2010
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:57 PM on December 25, 2010
I couldn't get the page to load due to my lack of flash plugins
That's actually the 'keep recyling' link above - the flash won't work because it's an older site on the Wayback machine (hence recycling...), and I don't think they store flash, but the zulu story is there.
posted by Sparx at 1:58 PM on December 25, 2010
That's actually the 'keep recyling' link above - the flash won't work because it's an older site on the Wayback machine (hence recycling...), and I don't think they store flash, but the zulu story is there.
posted by Sparx at 1:58 PM on December 25, 2010
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I have very fond memories of the Wombles too (but of course, everything was great back then, wasn't it?)
I was quite a bit older before I realized that they weren't singing 'The Wombles of Wimbledon, common are we.' 'Common' of course having all sorts of connotation in British English, besides a big, unkempt park.
I thought they just meant there were lots of them, though.
posted by Flashman at 2:04 PM on December 25, 2010 [1 favorite]
I have very fond memories of the Wombles too (but of course, everything was great back then, wasn't it?)
I was quite a bit older before I realized that they weren't singing 'The Wombles of Wimbledon, common are we.' 'Common' of course having all sorts of connotation in British English, besides a big, unkempt park.
I thought they just meant there were lots of them, though.
posted by Flashman at 2:04 PM on December 25, 2010 [1 favorite]
We moved to London from the states for a year in 1976, when I was 7. I still have a kind of mental collage of first impressions: the yellow lamps at zebra crossings, the purple foil of Cadbury bars, the accents, smelling the scent of tea at my parents' friends' East End flat where we were staying while I listened to their copy of Sargent Pepper's... and the first toy I acquired there: a green womble yo-yo (metal, not plastic) with Great Uncle Bulgaria on the side. I had no idea what a womble even was at the time, but soon became a devotee (especially when we wound up living in Wimbledon). My sister and I were inexplicably singing the theme song just the other day.
posted by scody at 2:20 PM on December 25, 2010
posted by scody at 2:20 PM on December 25, 2010
I got a giant stuffed Womble for Xmas about 35 years ago.
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posted by sevenyearlurk at 2:53 PM on December 25, 2010
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posted by sevenyearlurk at 2:53 PM on December 25, 2010
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posted by lalochezia at 3:07 PM on December 25, 2010
posted by lalochezia at 3:07 PM on December 25, 2010
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My sister still has her Great Uncle Bulgaria pajama case. I was singing the theme tune to Mrs arcticseal only last week.
posted by arcticseal at 3:55 PM on December 25, 2010
My sister still has her Great Uncle Bulgaria pajama case. I was singing the theme tune to Mrs arcticseal only last week.
posted by arcticseal at 3:55 PM on December 25, 2010
I think the "common are we" can be read both ways, a pune if you will, or play on words. Loved the wombles me.
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posted by Iteki at 4:12 PM on December 25, 2010
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posted by Iteki at 4:12 PM on December 25, 2010
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I grew up watching the Wombles. My sister is friends with a girl whose father was one of the chief animators on the show (among many things). He had the original model for Uncle Bulgaria sitting in his front hall in a glass case. Occasionally (usually during the party season), poor Uncle Bulgaria would be joined by a member of the Postman Pat cast, with whom he would often end up in a rather compromising position. I chose to see it as Uncle Bulgaria thoroughly enjoying his retirement from professional wombling.
posted by fight or flight at 4:37 PM on December 25, 2010 [1 favorite]
I grew up watching the Wombles. My sister is friends with a girl whose father was one of the chief animators on the show (among many things). He had the original model for Uncle Bulgaria sitting in his front hall in a glass case. Occasionally (usually during the party season), poor Uncle Bulgaria would be joined by a member of the Postman Pat cast, with whom he would often end up in a rather compromising position. I chose to see it as Uncle Bulgaria thoroughly enjoying his retirement from professional wombling.
posted by fight or flight at 4:37 PM on December 25, 2010 [1 favorite]
O O
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posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 6:15 PM on December 25, 2010 [3 favorites]
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posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 6:15 PM on December 25, 2010 [3 favorites]
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posted by Smart Dalek at 10:38 AM on December 26, 2010
posted by Smart Dalek at 10:38 AM on December 26, 2010
Thank you for this post. I remember Beresford's "Magic" books better than the Wombles ones. She had a distinctive writing style and was good at showing children's mix of confusion and acceptance when strange things happen. There's a bit in this obituary about the magic books:
She used the same technique of creating a fiction around the reality of place in her more inventive “magic” series – 13 titles from Awkward Magic (1964) to Strange Magic (1982) – which included Dangerous Magic (1972), the story of a struggle between good and evil set in the central London tower blocks. Beresford described her magic books as being about “children with very ordinary backgrounds to whom quite extraordinary things happen”, and the early titles proved popular enough for her publisher to ask her to come up with a new set of characters to feature in a new series. Thus she embarked on a rather different perspective on London life.posted by paduasoy at 1:24 PM on December 27, 2010 [1 favorite]
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posted by Sparx at 12:53 PM on December 25, 2010