The Wombles creator Elisabeth Beresford dies aged 84

By Stephanie Condron



Remember you're a Womble: Elisabeth Beresford, seen here with an Uncle Bulgaria toy and her MBE in 1998, has died aged 84


Elisabeth Beresford, who created the popular children’s characters The Wombles, has died aged 84.

Her son said she suffered heart failure on Christmas Eve at the Mignot Memorial Hospital on Alderney in the Channel Islands.

Born in Paris in 1926, Ms Beresford came up with the idea of the Wombles in the Sixties after a Boxing Day walk on Wimbledon Common with her two children.


After her daughter mispronounced the name, calling it Wombledon Common, she was inspired to create the pointy-nosed creatures, and in 1968 the first Wombles book was published.

The Wombles then became household names on UK television from 1973 to 1975.

During an interview with BBC Guernsey last month, Ms Beresford, who lived in St Anne on Alderney, recalled the day she came up with the characters. She said: ‘Over Christmas I had to keep the children quiet as their grandparents were visiting, so on Boxing Day, after the grandparents left, we got in my car and went to Wimbledon Common.


Underground, overground, Wombling free: The Wombles of Wimbledon Common set out to make good use of the things that they find in the 1970s BBC animated show


‘The three of us ran backwards and forwards screaming at the top of our voices – and it was my daughter who said to me, “Oh Ma, isn’t it great on Wombledon Common?” and I said, “That’s where the Wombles live.” ’

Ms Beresford, whose father was the successful novelist J. D. Beresford, served as a Wren during the Second World War.

She then worked as a ghost writer on BBC Radio’s Woman’s Hour.

In her spare time she wrote fiction, starting with romantic stories for women’s magazines.

She later visited Australia, South Africa and the West Indies with her sports commentator husband Max Robertson – and it was then that she was inspired to write children’s books. In 1998 she was made an MBE, remarking: ‘The Queen’s a mad Womble fan.'



Source:Dailymail