Tomsk – an athletic but rather dim Womble, named after the city of Tomsk in Russia. He acts as the official "Nightwatch Womble" (and Daywatch Womble on occasion). He is an extremely keen golf player, and plays on the London Scottish Golf Club course situated on the common, where human visitors have occasionally noted his talent for the sport. He is the largest and strongest of the Wimbledon Wombles. Great-Great Aunt Matilda Murrumbidgee – the leader of the New South Wales Wombles, named after Murrumbidgee River in Australia. She is very fierce and irritable, though Tomsk manages to stand up to her. Bretta. "The Goodies Episode Summaries, (Special) No. 49 Goodies Rule –OK?". The Goodies Rule – OK! Fan Club . Retrieved 12 July 2017. Wombles care for and educate their young at a communal level. As with human children, immature Wombles are taught reading, writing and athletic skills, which they learn by playing a game called "Wombles and Ladders". Some older Wombles play this game too, though most regard it as childish. Below a certain (unspecified) age, all Wombles are nameless; upon being deemed to be of working age, a Womble chooses his or her name by looking through Great Uncle Bulgaria's large atlas until they find a name that suits them. Some, Bungo for example, "merely shut their eyes tight and point and hope for the best". [8] They then leave Miss Adelaide's "Womblegarten" and join in the communal work of the burrow, which is mostly clearing up and recycling human refuse. Wombles are herbivores and are very fond of mushrooms. They eat a variety of plants, fungi, and tree products that human beings cannot (or will not) eat, so daisy buns, moss pie, acorn juice, fir-cone soufflé, elm bark casserole and grass bread sandwiches are part of the Womble menu – augmented by any food left behind on the Common by human beings. All Wombles are strong swimmers and can even survive for long periods in ice-cold water. Several sub-species of Womble are revealed throughout the books: the Loch Ness Monster is actually part of a clan of water Wombles and the yeti of the Himalayas are giant snow-white Wombles. Wombles have a sixth sense which allows them to sense green spaces and wildlife: this is first mentioned in the Wandering Wombles but developed to a keen long-range telepathic sense by Dalai Gartok Womble in The Wombles Go Round The World.

Madame Cholet – a very kind-hearted but short-tempered female Womble, and the cook of the Wimbledon burrow, styled on Beresford's mother and named after the town of Cholet in France. She affects a French accent, though she is actually no more French than any other Wimbledon Womble and simply likes to think of herself as French. Chieftain Fashven – the oldest of the Womble clan leaders in Scotland, and the last to be able to speak Womble Gaelic. The character is named after Fashven Hill in the far north of Scotland.Plummer, David (13 May 2003). "Even the Wombles refuse to follow Wimbledon to Milton Keynes". The Guardian. London . Retrieved 14 August 2011. J. Adair (11 August 2007). "My family and other Wombles". The Times. Archived from the original on 17 May 2008 . Retrieved 27 December 2010. In addition to these books, many annuals, picture books and children's early readers have been published over the years, some of which were also written by Beresford.

L-R Great Uncle Bulgaria, Bungo and Stepney (plus Tobermory the handyman in picture on wall), in one of the rooms in the burrow. Photo taken at National Media Museum, Bradford, UK. Great Aunt Thessaly (sometimes Great-Great Aunt Thessaly) – named after the province of Thessaly in Greece. The former leader of the Wombles before Great Uncle Bulgaria, she was noted to be 'very old and very wise', and is known to have taken a young Bulgaria to see the guards of Queen Victoria, and a young Cousin Yellowstone to Wimbledon Tennis Tournament. Her name was occasionally spelt "Thessally" in earlier editions of the first book.

a b c "Underground, Overground – The Wombles get wired". BBC. 17 February 1998 . Retrieved 14 August 2011. as royalty, especially the Queen. They also have a respect for human literature; the Wimbledon Wombles maintain a large library of books left by humans on the Common, and Great Uncle Bulgaria is fond of reading The Times.

The Wombles are fictional pointy-nosed, furry creatures created by Elisabeth Beresford and originally appearing in a series of children's novels from 1968. [1] They live in burrows, where they aim to help the environment by collecting and recycling rubbish in creative ways. Although Wombles supposedly live in every country in the world, Beresford's stories are primarily concerned with the lives of the inhabitants of the burrow on Wimbledon Common in London, England. Nessie – a "Water-Womble", named after the famous Loch Ness in Scotland. Nessie is part of a declining sub-species of aquatic Wombles, a larger breed with webbed paws who prioritise the cleaning of their body of water. In the Womble world, Water-Wombles, specifically Nessie, are the basis for the legend of the Loch Ness Monster, and due to Wombles being a self-contained species, Nessie dislikes the attention surrounding the legend and wishes she were as unknown as the "Land Wombles". Nessie also has two young Water-Womble charges named Ross and Cromarty. All of them are under the protection of the McWomble, and Nessie refers to him as her "best friend". Wombles are very careful to keep their existence secret from human beings – at least in the books and TV series – fearing that discovery of their existence will lead to the Great Womble Hunt. For the most part, adult human beings rarely take notice of them, or fail to distinguish them from humans. In the film Wombling Free this is reversed as the Wombles seek to get humans to listen to their pleas to "make good use of bad rubbish". Cairns and Perth – named after the respective cities in Australia and inhabitants of the Australian Burrow. Find sources: "The Wombles"– news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR ( July 2018) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Wombles are essentially burrowing animals. Beresford's original book describes them as "a bit like teddy bears to look at but they have real claws and live beneath Wimbledon Common". As they mostly live in long-established burrows, they rarely use their claws even for digging. Their size and physical appearance has changed somewhat over the years: in the original editions of the books, Wombles are pictured as bear-like and between 3 and 5 feet (about 1–1.5 metres) in height, making them only slightly smaller than adult humans. This changed with the TV series, in which they were portrayed as being about knee-high to humans, with pointy snouts like those of hedgehogs. In the book and film Wombling Free they are described as "short, fat, and furry", roughly between three or four feet (about 1 metre) in height. [ citation needed] Tante Lille – the leader of "Les Wombleaux of Boulogne", named after the northern French town of Lille.

Orinoco – a shirker who loves sleep and food, styled on Beresford's teenage son and named after the river in South America. Though lazy and slothful by nature, Orinoco is resourceful and always means well, and is capable of some surprising acts of moral and physical courage.Alderney – Madame Cholet's assistant, named after Alderney in the Channel Islands where Beresford lived towards the end of her life. She appeared in the early books, but was not in the first TV series. Her character was revived in the second TV series. She is a precocious young Womble with a slight disregard for the rules. [24] Ms Atlanta – the cook of the American burrow, named after the city of Atlanta, Georgia. She holds great respect for Madame Cholet. Wombles generally have a low opinion of other animal species, though they are never unkind to them. They have a poor opinion of humans in general, though there are exceptions, such