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Elisabeth Beresford

Charm is an all too rare quality in literature, but Elisabeth Beresford’s greatest creation The Wombles had – and have – it by the recycling barrowful (in spite of those songs). If, as with Orinoco, Uncle Bulgaria, Madame Cholet et al you can add whimsy to the recipe then as has proved the case with the secretive tidyers you have a winner. Ms Beresford sadly died on Christmas Day but leaves a legacy of dozens of stories that have already entranced two generations and will no doubt continue to do so for many more to come. And along with charm and whimsy her tales have a message that when she started the series in 1968 was in advance of its time – don’t despoil the environment by dumping rubbish, look at re-use not refuse. A prescient hero.

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A Royal Commission is a broody hen sitting on a china egg. - Michael Foot
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Russian Revolution - 1917, Lord Lucan disappears - 1974
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