Elisabeth Beresford - The Wombles, etc.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I'm familiar with Elisabeth Beresford's Wombles mainly from the 1970s TV series rather than from the books, though I have read two of her non-Womble titles which I bought from charity shops some time ago for 50p and 99p. The Secret Railway tells the story of Barny and Sue, who move from Birmingham to a small seaside town in Norfolk. They find the place bleak and dismal at first, until they come across a disused railway station which gives them ideas... The storyline is simple but is written with life, humour and attention to detail, and I enjoyed it. The other book is Vanishing Magic, which involves time travel, though I found it heavy-going and somehow lacking in enchantment and wonder.

An article in the online Daily Mail caught my eye earlier, written by Kate Robertson, Elisabeth Beresford's daughter. Kate explains that her mispronunciation of Wimbledon Common as Wombledon Common on a family outing inspired the invention of the Wombles. Over lunch a few days earlier, Elisabeth Beresford's publisher had challenged her to "find the answer to the Paddington series" and she felt that tubby little creatures called "the Wombles", who picked up litter left by visitors, might do the trick. Apparently, she plucked their names from an old family atlas and booked into a hotel to complete the first Wombles book in peace. Kate Robertson's biography of her mother, The Creator of the Wombles: The First Biography of Elisabeth Beresford, sounds interesting and I may well give it a read one of these days.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... ather.html

[Judith Crabb]

Yes, Anita, I'd be interested in reading the biography. Elizabeth Beresford wrote a couple of children's books set in Australia, 'Flying Doctor Mystery' and 'Flying Doctor to the Rescue' and I thought she must be Australian until I found out about the Wombles. I wonder if she visited.

[Boatbuilder]

Read about her here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Beresford

[Anita Bensoussane]

From the Wikipedia entry, it seems that Elisabeth Beresford grew up in a wonderfully literary environment:

Beresford was born on 6 August 1926 in Paris. Her father was J. D. Beresford, a successful novelist who also worked as a book reviewer for several papers. Her godparents included Walter de la Mare, who dedicated poems to her, the poet Cecil Day-Lewis, and the children's writer Eleanor Farjeon. Her parents' friends included H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, John Galsworthy, Hugh Walpole, W. Somerset Maugham and D. H. Lawrence.

Funnily enough, last night I was looking at a shelf of random books and I noticed that I have another Elisabeth Beresford title - Emily and the Haunted Castle, for which I paid 20p. It's described as "An exciting holiday adventure for 8 - 12s", about a family who go to stay in a remote castle where strange things happen.

[Courtenay]

I'm familiar with Elisabeth Beresford's Wombles mainly from the 1970s TV series rather than from the books, though I have read two of her non-Womble titles which I bought from charity shops some time ago for 50p and 99p. The Secret Railway tells the story of Barny and Sue, who move from Birmingham to a small seaside town in Norfolk. They find the place bleak and dismal at first, until they come across a disused railway station which gives them ideas... The storyline is simple but is written with life, humour and attention to detail, and I enjoyed it.

That sounds like a really interesting read and I've just bought a second-hand copy from eBay (not for 50p, though ) — it sounds like the sort of story I'd enjoy! I also have a friend who's a railway buff and who loves children's stories, even as a (sort of?) grown-up, so if I enjoy it, I'll lend it to him as well.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I hope you like The Secret Railway, Courtenay. It doesn't have a complex plot but I found it engaging and quite nostalgic.

[Judith Crabb]

Thanks, Boatbuilder, so she did visit Australia. And I note that she got an Order of the British Empire for her contribution to children's literature. (No such honour for our Enid.)