The Wombles at Work

There has been a huge festival and no end of rubbish has been left behind - everything from sunglasses to shoes, drinks cans and bottles. Who would have thought humans could leave so much behind, not bothering to recycle? The Wombles have their work cut out for them . . .

Elisabeth Beresford first came up with the idea for the Wombles 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.