Great Uncle Bulgaria, Bungo and Orinoco are back! The Wombles have been reissued at last. I left the bookstore grinning like a fool and hopping up and down to get home and read it to my long suffering offspring.
The Wombles must have been one of the first “environmentally friendly and sustainable living” children’s books, only without the insufferable pretension and tree-hugger political passivism of our latest offerings. They are quite simply, brilliant books, simple stories filled with humour and adventure. There is nothing subversive, no celebrity trying to get publicity out of it, no political agenda, just a good bedtime story with a good message.
The Wombles, in case you are too young (or American) to remember, live under Wimbledon Common and collect the stuff people leave behind. Come Sunday in the park, Small boy aged 6 found a packet in the park and off we went Wombling. In an hour we’d filled and emptied it twice. We didn’t find anything useful, but we did help clean up our park. Small boy aged 6 humbled me.
If each time we saw a piece of litter we picked it up
If each day we picked up the rubbish on our own piece of sidewalk
If each one of us picked up just piece of someone’s else’s trash
We can make a difference
To paraphrase another literary hero, Horton, “A difference, is a difference, no matter how small.”
What it boils down to is that we can’t keep bitching about poor service delivery and our government’s lazy ineptitude. We need to set the example that they need to follow. At the end of the day our government is a reflection of us, as individuals and as a culture and a nation. We can’t point fingers at fat cat politicians who do squat when we walk past a Coke can on the side of the road saying to ourselves, “Not my problem. That’s someone’s else job.” If we don’t care enough, why should the people we vote into office?
It’s Monday and the only day of the week I have the energy to be a self-righteous sanctimonious bitch. Sue me.
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