Who would win a fight between a
Womble and a
Teletubby? Why did
the Wombles' 1970s mission to teach a nation not to litter fail so abjectly? How did they,
as Marvin Gaye would put it,
get it on? Forget about the wonders of the ice age: as the Wombles of
Wimbledon Common celebrate their 40th birthday, these are the questions
that need answering.
Let's tackle the first question. Obviously
your Teletubby, while having much the same BMI as your mature Womble, is
bigger and thus more terrifying in a smackdown scenario. That said, the
former's gaudy colour scheme (Tinky Winky purple, Laa-Laa yellow) would
make a surprise attack unlikely on even a very slow-witted Womble (I'm
thinking of Tomsk, who has the lowest womble IQ and, as axiomatically
follows, likes golf). Plus, because each Teletubby contains a sweating
actor who's going to sack their agent as soon as they get out of their
fur suit, they aren't exactly going to chase down their preys like
cheetahs. Wombles are stuffed, and have no such motivational issues.
Wombles, unlike Teletubbies, have vicious little eyes and snouts that
suggest powerful teeth – both good in a scrap. They also have
retractable claws, decisive in close combat – and definitive proof that
1970s kids' TV is better than today's.
Wikipedia puts about
the nonsense that wombles are raccoons.
Do raccoons wear scarfs, spectacles and hats? Aren't raccoons, in fact,
known for tipping up bins rather than initiating community-wide, proto-
recycling initiatives? A Womble's life span, unlike a raccoon's, may be as long as 300 years (the
Womble song Minuetto Allegretto
refers to Great Uncle Bulgaria as being a lad in 1780: you do the
maths). This may explain how Great Uncle Bulgaria beat Britain's
fascistic immigration system. Long-lived, species-non-specific stuffed
animals rarely require visas, even when travelling from outside the EU. The
great tragedy of the Wombles is that their mission to make Britain
tidier now looks like a sick joke. The concept was dreamed up in 1968 by
the late children's author Elisabeth Beresford, and later adapted for TV by means of
Ivor Wood's brilliant stop-motion animation, an adorable
Bernard Cribbins' narration and
Mike Batt's undying theme music. It is as laughable as the
Keep Britain Tidy campaign.
Think of how last month's snow encouraged some dog owners to believe
they had a free pass to let their pets befoul the pavements, rather in
the way that
Mike Batt's Wombling Merry Christmas befouled the singles chart in December 1974. Actually, that's unfair: there was much worse stuff (
Mud's Lonely This Christmas, for one).
Did
the Wombles clean up their own mess? A rhetorical question: of course
they did! When they went for a walk, Tobermory would lead the way,
followed by Orinoco, who carried a bag for Tobermory's waste, followed
by Bungo, who was tasked with bagging Orinoco's. Tomsk, Wellington,
Madame Cholet, Stepney and even Cousin Cairngorm McWomble the Terrible
would follow in orderly fashion. Otherwise, Wimbledon Common would have
become a vast Womble latrine. Who bagged Tobermory's waste? We may never
know.
The selflessness and communal bonds that the Wombles
demonstrated weekly from 1973 to 1975, the basic respect they urged for
our streets, commons, one another and by extension, the planet, are
widely missing from our age. We need Wombles in 2013 – but where are
they? The likely truth is that the Wombles have retreated underground
for good, never again to shake their snouts at the overground mess we
have made. The same is true around the world: Elisabeth Beresford
imagined that each country would have a Womble colony, but they are now
nowhere to be found. Apart from the Singapore Wombles, who can and often
do eat their dinners off the city's pavements, so clean is it there.
(True story.)
Finally, how
do Wombles get it on? Well,
first they retract their claws. Empathetic in so many ways, they are, we
must suppose, thoughtful lovers. And then? None of your business.
