A is for A Little Bit of Silliness

Unless you worry about rubbish, in which case Wombles are very serious things!

I picked this chap up in a mixed lot the other day, I think he may have been Uncle Bulgaria once but he was beyond tatty, and it was either save him somehow or . . . off to recycling . . . sniff!

Now; I feel I have a close association with Wombles, my Granny made my brother and I very realistic ones in her craft group when we were kids which I still have somewhere; you often see similar really good unbranded Wombles in charity shops or on feeBay and I think they were all produced with the same plans/pattern by WI-circles and the like? They sometimes have sewn-in paper or card stiffening the ears! We had Uncle B and Wellington.

Also; we were big fans of the TV series anyway, and later we rented a field from the Author (Liza Beresford) who would sometimes chat to us over the wall while we worked it, so throwing Wombles in the recycling is akin to cold-blooded murder, ergo; 'Do something Muttley!' was the only option!

The flock had to go, I tried to save the scarf but it fell apart due to age! I saved the eye (2) and the nose (3), and would have replaced the missing eye, or both with glass beads, but the remains of his looking-glasses had such a long locating-stud (1), I managed to melt a bead on the end with a cigarette lighter (at the cost of heat-tendered finger-tips) and form a new eye. The key-ring chain-loop (⊂) was the last thing to go.

The scarf was then fashioned with a section of bootlace, which is looped through itself in the modern style and was held-tight and glued at the knot over-night, before being trimmed and the ends frayed with a hat-pin!

As there is already an Alderney ['she'], I shall call him Berlin and he can join the hard plastic ones we've seen in-part, a couple of times now, but - while I want to tick that box - I'm still waiting for an elusive Madame Cholet to turn up.

I suspect both these flocked blow-moulds and the similar-sized hard-plastic ones were HCF imports, certainly there were the remains of one of those little gold stickers on the underside of his feet, but it's a guess, not yet empirical.

W is for Wimbledon Waste Operatives

Bit of a box-ticker, but also a personal favourite, for reasons of pure nostalgia...my brother and I had these in a Christmas stocking the best part of a lifetime ago!

Sort of Pencil-tops -which is how they are sold on EvilBay - but too heavy, and sort of Cake decorations, but a bit big, they were on our 'ornament' shelf in the bedroom for what seemed like years, but was only that short period between infant-hood and late childhood! I think (although clearly marked Hong Kong) these may have been another Combex item in counter-display boxes? But I'm not sure enough to put that in the tag list!

I've picked up two lots of these in the last few years, and these are the better quality five. There are seven characters in a 'complete' set and I'm hoping that with the ones in storage I may have them all now...but they do turn-up regularly! They suffer from paint loss through handling/rubbing, particularly on the end of the nose, and occasionaly missing nose-tips..ouch!

I actually met Liza Beresford (The Wombles author) a few times, we used to rent a field off her, which we filled with chickens (maybe onions the first year?), and she would occasionally chat over the wall and take the proffered eggs!

Ear-worm..."Underground, overground, wombleing freeeee...The Wombles of...Wimbledon...Common are we!..."