REMEMBER, HE'S A WOMBLE

Simon Stabler finds Orinoco in full flow

- Simon Stabler

In early 1974, there was no escaping the Wombles. Not only were they the stars of a popular animated TV series, their theme tune, The Wombling Song, had become a pop hit, thanks in part to a one-man marketing campaign by their leader, Orinoco, AKA musician and composer Mike Batt.

"Now that I had a Womble costume," recalls Mike, "I decided not to waste it and indeed to wear it all day long, every day, wherever I went. I wore it on the train, on the Tube, in taxis, on trips to Birmingham and Manchester." At every town Mike visited, 100 or so records would be sold that day. His record company began to take notice and put its own promotional efforts into place, resulting in The Wombling Song peaking at No 4 in the singles chart.

It was to be the first of eight Top 40 hits under the Wombles name. Having negotiated the character rights for musical production instead of simply taking a fee for the composition, it had proved to be a shrewd move. But even Mike is surprised that he's still talking Wombles 50 years on.

"I didn't even know we were going have one hit never mind eight. My ambition was to write a whole album of Wombles stuff because I loved the characters and that was really my reason for asking for the character rights. Or the right to write an album, which meant that I needed to have the rights to present it as leading the Wombles, even though it's me singing.

"And that automatically gave me the rights to make the second, third, fourth album, and become a Womble.