The Wombles to the Rescue

.

For Alderney

.

Contents

.

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Preface

Paws for Thought

Chapter 1: Great Uncle Bulgaria Gets a Letter

Chapter 2: Tobermory Sees Trouble Ahead

Chapter 3: Wellington Vanishes

Chapter 4: The Grey Wolf of Wimbledon Common

Chapter 5: Great Uncle Bulgaria Sends a Letter

Chapter 6: Cousin Botany's Secret

Chapter 7: Tomsk Has an Idea

Chapter 8: Miss Adelaide Puts Her Foot Down

Chapter 9: The Big Splash

Chapter 10: Orinoco on Television

Chapter 11: Remember You're a Womble

The Wombles Who's Who

Wonderful Wombling Facts

Welcome to the Wonderful World of the Wombles

The Wombles

The Wandering Wombles

The Wombles at Work

The Invisible Womble

The Wombles Go round the World

Also by Elisabeth Beresford

Imprint

g

Preface

I am delighted that Bloomsbury is reissuing the Wombles books. The Wombles have always been environmentally aware, recycling the rubbish that they find and putting it to good use, so it gives me particular pleasure that their adventures are also being recycled!

We cannot rely on the Wombles to do all our recycling for us but I hope they will encourage everyone who reads their adventures to follow their example and have fun into the bargain.

The Wombles have always made people laugh and I hope they continue to do so.

g

Elisabeth Beresford
,
MBE

Alderney

March 2010

g

Paws for Thought

An additional note from Great Uncle Bulgaria

When I first saw Elisabeth Beresford, I knew that I had met the right Human Being to whom the Womble adventures could be told. It was Boxing Day and she was with her children, Marcus and Kate, walking on Wimbledon Common. They were letting off steam, having had to be on best behaviour over Christmas as their house had been full of elderly relations. I heard Elisabeth's daughter say, ‘Oh Ma, it's wonderful on Wombledon Common' and that was it! Elisabeth became aware of our existence, the burrow, and the way we Wombles recycle all the rubbish you Human Beings leave behind.

She told me that she had written lots of children's books, including magic stories, so I told her all about us but I made her promise never to give away the location of the burrow. Since then, we've appeared in books, made records and appeared on television. The young Wombles think it's great fun but I prefer a quiet life.
Tsk, tsk.

I am very happy to give my pawprint to this reprint (Bungo insisted I use that joke) and hope you enjoy our adventures as much as we did. In fact, we have had so many adventures in the Wimbledon Burrow, I thought it would be a good idea if we had a book which recorded a few shorter stories which we sometimes recall and laugh at during Story Time. This is that book!

Now I must go because Orinoco has just found today's edition of
The Times
. Of course, he has gone straight to the kitchen to claim his reward from Madame Cholet. I think I heard him muttering something about daisy and dandelion fizz . . .

Carry on Wombling.

g

Great Uncle Bulgaria

The Womble Burrow

Wimbledon Common

g

.

Chapter 1

Great Uncle Bulgaria Gets a Letter

‘It's certainly very nice to be back,' said Great Uncle Bulgaria, looking round Wimbledon Common.

The sun was just coming up, and there were long shadows across the grass, which was sparkling with dew. Over towards the Windmill, a small round figure was trotting along with a tidy-bag in one paw and a pointed stick (which had once been an umbrella shaft) in the other.

‘One of my Wombles out working already,' said Great Uncle Bulgaria, hitching his shawl more closely round his shoulders, as there was a decidedly cool nip in the air. ‘How very gratifying . . .'

‘Yes, I dare say,' said Tobermory, who was standing by the Wombles' own home-made car, the Silver Womble, which was still packed tight with sleepy-eyed young Wombles, who were all starting to yawn rather noisily behind their paws. ‘I dare say you're quite right, Bulgaria, you usually are; but, be that as it may, it's high time we all got safely home inside the burrow. Come along, you young Wombles, out you get. Quietly now . . .'

The young Wombles stopped yawning and rubbing their eyes and climbed down out of the car.

‘I'll tell you what,' said Bungo, who was as bossy and know-all as ever. ‘The burrow looks different to me. The front door's not the same for a start. I'll tell you what . . .'

‘No, you won't,' said Tomsk. ‘You've been telling us all across London about
everything
. You told us about the traffic lights, and the roads and the bridges. You're
ALWAYS
telling us and . . .'

‘I don't care about all that,' said Orinoco, ‘as long as it's breakfast time. I'm ever so hungry, you know. What I'd really fancy would be toadstool scramble on fried moss bread followed by bracken marmalade and dandelion toast with a few fresh hazelnuts for afters and . . .'

‘
QUIET
!' roared Tobermory.

The young Wombles all stopped arguing and whispering and pushing, and even Orinoco stopped rubbing his stomach because, when Tobermory used that tone of voice, it meant that something serious was going to happen.

‘This,' said Tobermory, ‘is a very important moment in Womble history. We Wombles have left Hyde Park
*
to return to Wimbledon Common, because when all's said and done, we
ARE
the Wombles of Wimbledon. Over to you, Bulgaria.'

Great Uncle Bulgaria leant on his stick, and looked over his spectacles at all the young Wombles. He would very much have liked to make a speech, but he could see that everyone was rather tired, so he only said, ‘We've been away from our Wimbledon burrow for some time, because, as you all know, we had to leave when the heavy lorries kept roaring round Tibbet's Corner. While there was so much traffic on the road, this burrow just wasn't safe. Now, it
is
perfectly safe. Thanks to information from Advance Womble Scouting Parties we know that heavy traffic has been re-routed. So we're home again, and now that we
are
here, we must all pull together. We must . . . goodness gracious me, what is
THAT
?'

T
HAT
was a rusty, squeaking, really horrible noise, which made everybody's fur stand on end as the door of the burrow opened. A small, square (even for a Womble) figure appeared in the doorway. He seemed to be quite old as his fur was nearly as white as Great Uncle Bulgaria's and he was wearing a very battered yellow panama hat, and a large apron made of sacking, which came down to his toes. In one paw he was holding a flowerpot, and in the other a bent kitchen fork.

The elderly Womble looked at all the other Wombles with his bright little eyes, and then he touched the brim of his hat with the fork, and nodded at Great Uncle Bulgaria, who for once in his long life didn't seem to know what to say. Then the elderly Womble turned and went hurrying off across the Common, and very soon vanished in the bushes.

‘Dear, dear,
DEAR
me,' said Great Uncle Bulgaria, finding his voice at last, ‘that surely can't have been . . . no, no it's impossible . . . but it must have been. Goodness gracious
ME
!'

‘Who?' said Bungo, who was jumping up and down with curiosity.

‘Cousin Botany,' said Tobermory. ‘Haven't seen him for years. Thought he'd retired. He came to this country from Australia, when he was very young. Came by sailing ship, I seem to recall. You know, Bulgaria, this front door's in a shocking state. The hinges just haven't been properly oiled.
Tsk, tsk, tsk
.'

‘Cousin Botany,' said Great Uncle Bulgaria. ‘Now why has he suddenly turned up here, I wonder? Not that I've anything against Botany, indeed I'm very fond of him, but he's a – er – rather unusual Womble in his way.'

By this time, everybody, even Orinoco, was so interested in their unusual relation that they had all bunched together in a group, quite forgetting how sleepy they were.

‘Why is he unusual?' asked Wellington in a whisper.

‘Because he doesn't like talking, that's why,' said Tobermory briskly. ‘Unlike some I could mention,' and he looked hard at Bungo, who tried to pretend that he was busy smoothing down his fur. ‘Which reminds me, Bulgaria, the sun's well up now, and that means there'll be some Human Beings coming on to the Common soon. You know how noisy they are, so perhaps we'd better get nice and snug inside the burrow, eh?'

Great Uncle Bulgaria, who appeared to have gone off into a dream about something or another, nodded and led the way indoors, shaking his white head as he did so. Everybody else followed on behind him, and Tobermory, after looking at the rust on the front door hinges yet again while going ‘
tsk, tsk, tsk
' under his breath, returned to the Silver Womble which was now empty. He drove it round to the back of the burrow where he discovered, as he had known all along that he would do, that the hinges were in a bad state on the garage door as well.

The Silver Womble slid into its old familiar home and stopped. It is totally Tobermory's invention and it is the only car of its kind in the world. He had recently adapted it to run entirely on clockwork, so it is silent, smell-less and costs nothing to use. Tobermory climbed out and took a large duster from his apron pocket, and dusted the windscreen and then the bonnet and finally all the bumpers. As
WOM I
was not particularly dusty, let alone dirty, this was a certain, sure sign that Tobermory was rather worried about something.

‘I'll tell you what,' said Tobermory to
WOM I
, as he put away his duster, and sighed deeply, ‘and I know I sound just like Bungo, but I'm worried. Things aren't as they should be. It's something to do with us Wombles, and something to do with the burrow – which doesn't feel
right
somehow – and something to do with finding old Cousin Botany here! Now, why should he come out of his retirement, eh? When a Womble gets to his age, he has a
right
to take things easy. Why, dear me, he must be . . . one hundred, one hundred and fifty . . . Hallo . . . what's that?'

It was the distant sound of a bell being rung very importantly. It was a particular sort of a bell and, as Tobermory had made it in the first place out of old tin cans and bits of this and pieces of that, he recognised it at once. He stopped feeling a little bit afraid and a tiny bit worried because, like every other Womble in the world, he knew very well that when a bell was sounded in that
particular
way it could only mean one thing.

‘Breakfast time,' said Tobermory and sniffed deeply. ‘And what's more I do believe it's toadstool scramble on fried moss bread . . . Quite my most favourite food really . . .'

Of course all the other Wombles of Wimbledon were saying exactly the same thing and their bright little eyes were all turned towards the kitchen where Madame Cholet (the best Womble cook, probably, that there's ever been) had been working away from the moment she had returned to the Wimbledon burrow.

‘
Tiens
,' said Madame Cholet who, because of her name, likes to talk in French from time to time, ‘
tiens
, come along and start eating or everything will be ruined!'

Nobody needed to be told twice and for quite a long time there was no sound at all except for busy eating noises. It wasn't until Orinoco had chewed his way through
SIX
slices of dandelion toast that Great Uncle Bulgaria got to his back paws and, having banged on the table for silence, said, ‘Welcome back to the Wimbledon burrow, Wombles.'

‘Hear, hear,' said Wellington.

‘Hear, hear, hear,' said Bungo, who never likes to be outdone.

‘Mmmmmm,' said Tomsk, who was wondering in a vague sort of way if he'd be able to go swimming in Queen's Mere quite soon.

‘
Zzzzzzz
,' said Orinoco, who was just drifting off into a nice forty winks.

‘Welcome back,' repeated Great Uncle Bulgaria, getting out his second pair of spectacles and putting them on his nose so that he could look over and through them in a rather scary way, which made even Bungo stop whispering. ‘But, although it is very pleasant to be back in our old home burrow, I do feel that we should all realise that . . . oh dear me, what is it now?'

Great Uncle Bulgaria, Tobermory, Madame Cholet and everybody else turned to look towards the door, which had just opened rather noisily, because its hinges were somewhat rusty.

A small square figure wearing a battered panama hat, a long sacking apron, and a rather puzzled expression appeared in the opening.

‘Cousin Botany,' said Great Uncle Bulgaria just a little bit crossly, ‘we're all very glad that you've come to pay us a visit, but is there anything in particular that you would like to say to us?'

Cousin Botany scratched behind his ear with his kitchen fork, looked under the brim of his hat, wrinkled his nose and then very slowly shook his head in such a sad sort of way that all the young Wombles felt quite scared.

‘Have something to eat,' said Madame Cholet. ‘A slice of dandelion toast, yes?'

‘Thank you kindly, no,' replied Cousin Botany in a slow, deep voice. ‘Had my meal at sunup. This is for you, Bulgaria. Came while you were away over the other side of the river. I'd have brought it to you, except I had work to do.'

.

.

And Cousin Botany took a rather crumpled, muddy envelope out of his apron pocket, dusted it with the back of his paw, and gave it to Great Uncle Bulgaria. Before anybody else could say a word Cousin Botany had hurried out of the room. A few seconds later they heard the awful screeching sound of the front door being opened and then shut.

‘He always was rather a
strange
sort of Womble, even when he was young,' Great Uncle Bulgaria said behind his paw to Tobermory. But Tobermory only nodded and grunted under his breath, because he was busy writing out a long list of odd jobs that he had already noticed needed doing round the burrow. It started with ‘No. 1. Oil hinges', and he had already got to No. 7., which was ‘Water pipes leaking!'