Wombles, Windmill and Nelson, aka parkrunning around England
Lee is excited, we have risen early and driving up the motorway to the capital, more precisely Wimbledon Common. “Why are we going to Wimbledon?” I ask, “So I can get my 777 for my Nelson” Lee replies enthusiastically. I sigh inwardly another running challenge no doubt, “Wimbledon? Where the tennis championships are held?” I ask, “Yes” replies Lee at length “But we are going to the Common”, “Ok, what is Wimbledon Common famous for?” I ask, “The Windmill and if we are really lucky we might see some Wombles” comes Lee’s reply, “Some what?”, “Wombles, you know those little creatures who pick up litter and are only found on Wimbledon Common” comes Lee’s reply, I have absolutely no idea…
We park and walk to the start area and it is evident that today is busier than usual, typically Wimbledon Common parkrun has around 400 participants, and today there is over a thousand, obviously this Nelson challenge is popular, but what is it?
One of the most popular summer sports in England is the game of Cricket, I don’t profess to understand all the rules but I know it involves two teams and they score by hitting the ball then running between two sets of stumps before the ball returns back to one of the stumps, each time they successfully negotiate endeavour they get a point called a run. The English like to attach names to different milestones in scoring and one of these is a Nelson when a batsman scores 111 and then multiples thereafter so 222 is a Double Nelson and so it goes on.
Why it is called a Nelson, well it is named, like many things after England greatest navel hero Lord Horatio Nelson. There are two theories as to why with various sources ascribe it to referring to Nelson’s three major naval victories (won, won, won), or to “one eye, one arm and one leg” which is a complete fallacy as Nelson never in fact lost a leg or his eye, although he lost the sight of one eye.
There is a superstition in cricket that bad things happen when a player is on a Nelson but thankfully Lee and the other 1072 participants completed Wimbledon Common parkrun with no mishaps.
The finish area was located by the aforementioned windmill so once Lee had got his breath back we wandered over to look at the mill. The mill dates 1817 and was in operation until 1864 when it was converted into accommodation. It continued to be used as housing for the common rangers until 1975 when it was converted into a museum. One of the accommodation rooms remains to show life in the 1870s but the rest of the museum details the history of the windmill and windmills around the world.
Unfortunately during the winter months the museum is closed and we were unable to visit so we started walking back to the car to make our journey home. To be conti… but wait we have finished yet!
“So did you see any then” asked Lee as we walking past the lake, “See any what?” I retorted, “Wombles of course!” exclaims Lee “I didn’t see any but maybe it was too busy with all those parkrunners about”, I say that I have no idea what he is talking about and that he should explain, his explanation follows.
“Wombles are pointy-nosed furry creatures, who live in burrows under the ground, they are around 1m tall. With a life span of over 300 years and herbivore diet they help the environment by collecting and recycling rubbish in creative ways. They are very careful to keep their existence a secret from human beings but if you are lucky they can be found in every country in the world but the most famous and largest family live on Wimbledon Common. There are lots of books about them, a TV series, and they even released a some hit records”
“What?!” I exclaim I realise that Lee is talking about some characters from some children’s books and TV series that I have never heard of so let me fill in the gaps with some help from Lee.
Elisabeth Beresford took her young children for a walk upon Wimbledon Common one Boxing Day, where her daughter Kate repeatedly mispronounced it as “Wombledon Common” (“Ma, isn’t it great on Wombledon Common?”). This sparked the idea of the Wombles in her mother’s mind. On getting home, Beresford wrote down the idea and started developing the characters and storylines. She developed most of her Womble characters around members of her family, and named them after places the family had associations with.
A series of five novels were produced together with a short story collection between 1968 and 1976.
The success of the books led to a TV series being produced using stop-motion animation, two series and a total of sixty episodes were made between 1973 and 1975 and have been repeated endlessly on British TV ever since becoming one of the best loved children’s TV series in the UK. A live action feature length film was made in 1977 it appears that it wasn’t a success with one critic describing it as “abysmal”.
Womblemania gripped Britain and the singer/songwriter/producer of the TV series theme tune, Southampton born Mike Batt, had refused the offered £200 fee for writing the tune instead asking for the character rights for musical production. This turned out to be a shrewd move as The Wombles had eight hit singles and four gold albums in the UK and success around the world. The highest charting song was the Christmas hit “Wombling Merry Christmas” which reached number 2 in 1974 but probably the most enduring release was “Remember you’re a Womble” which peaked at number 3 in the charts the same year.
Obviously I was disappointed not to have met any real live Wombles on Wimbledon Common but Lee assured me that there are other ways of seeing them, for example in nearly every toy and book shop in England, I will be keeping my eyes open when I next visit one.
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