The Wandering Wombles

The Wombles live in a beautifully snug, well-ordered and cosy burrow underneath Wimbledon Common - the perfect base from which to sort and recycle all the rubbish that unthinking humans constantly drop. But the Wombles' peaceful and harmonious existence is suddenly under threat. The heavy lorries that thunder along the roads near the Common make the burrow shake and tremble so much that it is no longer safe for the Wombles to live there. With a heavy heart, Great Uncle Bulgaria decides that the Wombles will have to move from the burrow that they have lived in for many, many years. And it is up to young Bungo and Orinoco to bravely sally forth and try to locate a new home for the Wombles . . . Classic and much loved characters brought back into print with a fresh new cover look and inside illustrations to celebrate over 40 years of the Wombles. Elisabeth Beresford first came up with the idea for the Womble characters when walking on Wimbledon Common with her two children. She started sketching out the characters that day: Great Uncle Bulgaria was based on her father-in-law, Tobermory on her brother (an inventor), Orinoco on her son, and Madame Cholet on her mother. She hoped that the Wombles stories would encourage children to fight pollution and to think up ways of 'making good use of bad rubbish'. In fact, the Wombles so charmed the nation that they were chosen as the mascots for the Tidy Britain campaign. Since then they have had their own television series, first broadcast on Jackanory. Elisabeth Beresford was awarded an MBE for her services to children's literature in 1998 and she now lives in Alderney, the Channel Islands.