Weird Womble Epiphany

[Wherearemyminions]

The other day I was driving to Solihull and noticed that it was twinned with Cholet. Hmm I thought, like the womble....

Bit later in the day I had this huge lightbulb moment OMG all the wombles have names of places, how did I not know this before??

Then it got more weird, I was in the shower this morning and remembered that Great Uncle Bulgaria names the wombles from an atlas, I clearly recall reading this aged about 6 or 7.

The only explanation I can come up with is that 6/7 year old me had never heard of these places so thought that GU Bulgaria used a special womble atlas with made up place names in

I may be overthinking this....

You're right! And in fact, we've just downed tools to check this out thoroughly. Apparently, wombles don't get a name until they come of age, at which point they get to choose one from Uncle Bulgaria's atlas.

www.citymetric.com/horizons/where-exactly-are-wombles-named-after-we-made-map-3060

My sister always thought Madame Cholet was Madame Shirley as it’s a suburb where we lived 😂 - still a place though so I guess it was ok 😁

When I was a kid I thought the theme tune lyrics were

"Making a juice of the things that we find"

In my 5 year old mind the wombles collected rubbish and turned it into orange juice. It was a bit of an epiphany when I finally realised.

Weirdly the part of Solihull that I was going to was Shirley. Was it that one (and was your sister on the twinning committee?)

"Making a juice of the things that we find" Snort - love it!

Also, where do wombles come from? - as far as I can recall Madame Cholet was the only adult female womble and they are clearly mammalian so...?

Ah I bloody loved the Wombles!
Dc these days have such awful programmes!

I used to totally mishear the lyrics. Not being from London I didn't realise Wimbledon Common was a place so I heard...

"Wombles of Wimbledon, common are we" so always assumed they were common creatures rather than creatures that lived on a common!

There was a question on the placenames on Pointless recently too!

"Underground, overground wombling free, the wombles of Wimbledon Common are we."

Thanks very much for providing today's ear-worm!

Milton Southampton? DH used to live on Shirley Road aka the mutant mile!

I was terrified of the Wombles as a child!

Can I supply another ear-worm?? Check out "A Wombling Merry Christmas" - I did it by chance two years ago and now its going through my head AGAIN

Orinoco, Tobermory, Tonks. I had an Orinoco who said 'let's go wombling today'.

What's Tonks names after ?

Just realised it's Tomsk !!!!!

I'm going to get no work done today now !

I only realised this when watching Pointless the other day. I then tried to explain to the DC what Wombles are and really failed.

As a child I also thought they were common not realising Wimbledon Common was a place.

@ItsAllGone19 "Wombles of Wimbledon, common are we" so always assumed they were common creatures rather than creatures that lived on a common!

Came here to say this. Genuinely thought they were common. Not that I really knew what that meant.

Come to think of it, I can't remember ever actually watching the Wombles...

There was one called Bungo too ??

There certainly was

I posted on another thread a couple of weeks ago that I too, thought Wombles were lots of them as opposed to living on a common and had only realised this recently on visiting Wimbledon Common. Other people interpreted it to mean they were a bit chavy.

As the thread progressed, it turns out that The Wombles was, a much loved but highly misinterpreted progamme, by many.

Bungo - over-enthusiastic and bossy, named after Bungo Province in Japan.

wombles.fandom.com/wiki/Wombles_Wiki

The books were amazing - the bit that really sticks in my mind is when the Wombles were undergoing a harsh winter and Orinoco goes to Fortnum and Mason (cunningly rebranded I believe as something like Mortnum and Fason) and finds loads of abandoned food, stuffs his face until he comes to a sausage roll whihc brings him up short because Wombles are vegetarian, and then is utterly ashamed of his piggery when his friends are starving back in the burrow.

I’m sure in the books they relocate from Wimbledon to Hyde Park, or Kensington Gardens, as well. Maybe it doesn’t stick and they go back again.

The Shirley in Solihull used to have a Chinese called the Shirley Temple. Just brilliant.

I had the Wombles Greatest Hits album on vinyl. I was heartbroken when I doscovered my parents had got rid of it after I left home - they never throw anything out! My DH managed to find one on a 2nd hand record stall in the market so am now the proud owner of the album again - although it does jump in one track.

I loved the Wombles.