The Wombles are fictional pointy-nosed, furry creatures created by Elisabeth Beresford and originally appearing in a series of children’s novels from 1968. They live in burrows, where they aim to help the environment by collecting and recycling rubbish in creative ways. Although Wombles supposedly live in every country in the world, Beresford’s stories are primarily concerned with the lives of the inhabitants of the burrow on Wimbledon Common in London, England. The characters gained a higher national profile in the UK in the mid-1970s as a result of the popularity of a BBC-commissioned children’s television show which used stop motion animation.
The Wombles were a British novelty pop group, featuring musicians dressed as the characters from the children’s TV show The Wombles. Songwriter and record producer Mike Batt wrote and also performed many commercially successful singles and albums as ‘The Wombles’ with other collaborators, including the TV series’ theme tune. British Hit SIngles & Albums jokingly referred to them as the “furriest (and possibly the tidiest) act… are natives of Wimbledon Common, London”. In 2011, the band played at The Glastonbury Festival.A number of spin-off novelty songs also became hits in the British music charts. The Wombles pop group was the idea of British singer and composer Mike Batt.
Filmfair acquired the television rights to The Wombles and commissioned Batt to write the theme song. He waived the flat fee for writing a single song and instead secured the rights to write songs under the name ‘The Wombles’. The band released several albums and singles. All four studio albums went gold, and four of the singles reached the Top 10 in the UK Singles Chart. The Wombles were the most successful music act of 1974 in the UK, with albums in the UK charts for more weeks than any other act.
In January 1974, Mike Batt appeared on an edition of Cilla Black’s BBC television series as Orinoco, having been accompanied onstage by guest Bernard Cribbins, to plug “The Wombling Song”. Consequently, when the single charted, the “band” was invited to perform on Top of the Pops. Additional Womble suits of the other main characters were hastily made for the live performance.
When appearing as a band, the Wombles were always played by experienced musicians dressed in full costume. Batt continued to perform as Orinoco, regularly accompanied by renowned drummer Clem Cattini dressed as Bungo and respected rock guitarist Chris Spedding dressed as Wellington (complete with Spedding’s trademark white Gibson Flying V) — both of whom had previously recorded with Batt. On one edition of Top of the Pops, the costumes were filled by members of Steeleye Span.
