Wombles composer Mike Batt on song which showed ‘there was more to me than being a Womble’

During a glittering career lasting half a century and counting, Mike Batt’s talents have earned him collaborations with the likes of Art Garfunkel and Andrew Lloyd Webber, while Paul McCartney hails him as one of our best songwriters.

Yet when we meet at an upmarket bar on, fittingly, Wimbledon Common, South-West London, to discuss his brilliant new memoir, he admits candidly: “Other countries know the scope of my work, but in Britain, I’ll always be ‘The Wombles guy’.”

Ah yes, the Wombles. Those loveable pioneers of recycling and sustainability, created by author Elisabeth Beresford in a series of children’s novels in the late 1960s. A BBC1 series about them ran for two years from 1973 and its enduring popularity today is largely thanks to the music Batt wrote to accompany the show.

Just 23 at the time, Batt wrote, sang and produced four Wombles albums, which spawned four Top 10 singles, including Remember You’re A Womble, The Wombling Song and Wombling Merry Christmas.

Today the father-of-four is at peace with the fact those catchy earworms overshadow his impressive canon of work – including a co-writing credit on the song The Phantom of the Opera, and having written Bright Eyes, Garfunkel’s hit theme to the animated film of Watership Down, and discovering multi-million-selling stars like Katie Melua and Vanessa-Mae.

Looking trim and youthful at 75 over teas in Wimbledon’s Hotel du Vin, Batt could probably still fit inside his Orinoco costume, the hapless but well-meaning Womble portrayed by the songwriter during the band’s many television appearances.

We’re here to discuss his wildly entertaining new autobiography, which has a remarkable anecdote on almost every page, as well as showcasing the breadth of Batt’s talents. Despite the long, furry shadow The Wombles cast on the rest of his career, Batt is full of mischief as he discusses his many adventures for the next 90 minutes.

“The Wombles was only two years of a career that’s lasted 57 years,” he explains, pouring a pot of tea. “But it was a hell of a two years. My only tiny regret about The Wombles is that it stands in the way of people seeing who I am in other genres.

“But I’m very lucky. It gave my whole family a lot of joy, as it did so many other families. So how could I regret it?”

Batt was a stickler for keeping the quality strong throughout The Wombles, both musically and in their image. He insisted the costumes – handmade by Batt’s mother, Elaine – remain immaculate and that none of his fellow musicians be photographed outside of their outfits.

“Kids believed TheWombles were real,” emphasises Batt of the importance of those rules. He pauses, gesturing out of the bar window. “Of course, TheWombles are real. They’re cleaning up the litter outside on the Common.

We were the pop group Wombles. Nonetheless, it would have been crazy to walk down the street with a human head sticking out of aWomble’s body.”

Only once did Batt break character – and it nearly got him arrested. Stuck in traffic, he decided to bemuse the occupants of the car next to him by sticking his Womble head on while waiting for the lights to change. Batt recalls: “I looked over, ready to laugh inside my Womble head at the reaction. I was immediately horrified to see I was staring at a police car. I was so relieved when the police officer burst out laughing. He stopped me, but just told me, ‘Don’t do it again.’ I didn’t.”

Sadly, a long-running dispute with the family of Elisabeth Beresford, who control The Wombles copyright, means Batt has only briefly reunited the furry band in the decades since. One such revival led to a memorable appearance at Glastonbury in 2011.

Batt laughs: “My musical heroes are Frank Zappa and Leonard Bernstein, and they never got to play Glastonbury in a Womble costume. Glastonbury was the Wombles’ ultimate achievement. I was in my early 60s and we played for an hour. It was 82F, and that was before I put the costume on. It was a challenge and a pleasure.”

“When Batt’s band members were rehearsing for their acclaimed Glasto performance, acclaimed rockers Primal Scream were also practising in the same studio. They asked to have their photo taken with the Wombles. By then, Batt was aware of the characters’ legacy.

He smiles: “I spent the first half of my post-Wombles career wanting to prove I could do other things. Once I had, I was aware how much they mean to people.

“Half the fun of the entertainment business is breaking the act. The second half of the fun is keeping it going. Not every project will be successful so, if you’ve got one that is, you should make the most of it. That bridges the gap until the next adventure.”

Batt’s next adventure was producing successful folk band Steeleye Span, who had been impressed by the musicality of the Wombles’ hits. After he started to release his solo albums, he was asked in 1978 to write the theme song for the haunting animated film, Watership Down.

The movie and Batt’s theme are now established classics, but recording Bright Eyes was a nightmare, thanks to Art Garfunkel’s grandstanding manager.

“Bright Eyes was a rare song I wrote that I just knew would be a hit,” Batt recalls today.

“There was a 60-piece orchestra at the session and I was told, in front of everyone: ‘I don’t like the arrangement.’ I’m not a tantrum-thrower, but I said, ‘You don’t have to have the song. I’m going.’ I wasn’t throwing my weight around, I was on the receiving end of someone abusing their power. Bright Eyes was my chance to show there was more to me than being a Womble.”

Batt persuaded Garfunkel to empty the studio, so the song could be finished as they wanted. “Artie was very good about it,” chuckles Batt, who reveals he’d have asked cult rocker Colin Blunstone to sing Bright Eyes if Garfunkel hadn’t worked out.

“It was a long journey to get Bright Eyes to No 1, but it was worth the hassle. The more difficult the climb, the better the view from the top.”

In 1980, just as Batt was becoming established as a film composer, he uprooted his family. In a bid to save his first marriage, he took his wife and children around the world for two-and-a-half years on his new luxury boat, Braemar. The marriage ended anyway, but in Australia, near the end of the trip, Batt met his second wife, actress Julianne White, best known for playing Ben Kingsley’s lover Jackie in the classic British gangster film Sexy Beast.

Being out of the industry for so long harmed his credibility. He admits: “There was something suicidal for my career about the trip. I think it was deliberate. I think I knew I’d come back broke, but I didn’t know I’d also have a horrendously expensive divorce from it too. But, yes, I knew there was a risk to letting everything go.”

During the trip, however, Batt met Paul McCartney, when they were both in Montserrat. The Beatles legend greeted Batt with his own cheeky version of Bright Eyes’ chorus, singing: “Huge t***, wobbling like jelly.”

Batt grins: “I was already smiling as I was meeting a hero, then I burst out laughing when Paul sang that to me.”

Eventually, Batt discovered classical crossover successes Vanessa-Mae and Planets. There were eight members of Planets, a logistical nightmare that led Batt to want his next protégé to be a solo singer. Enter Katie Melua. He oversaw her first three platinum selling albums.

Batt says of Melua’s audition in 2002: “I didn’t mind if it was a male or female singer, I was just looking for a good singer of my songs. What I didn’t bank on was finding a great singer, as opposed to a good one.

“When I asked Katie to embellish a part in a Kurt Weill song, she came out with something that was the opposite of a standard X Factor embellishment. It was something I’d never heard, and I knew then Katie was going to be a star.”

Eventually, Melua grew frustrated that Batt was seen as the talent behind her music. The two grew distant, but are now reconciled. Batt says: “I never thought Dionne Warwick was any less of a singer just because Burt Bacharach wrote her songs.

“But Katie is from a different generation, where you’re expected to write your own songs. She felt more uncomfortable than I did and I understand that.

“We don’t talk that often now, but we had a nice pub lunch together not so long ago. Now, I watch Katie’s career from a distance, like a kindly uncle. I wish her well.”

On what he learned from writing his book, The Closest Thing To Crazy, Batt ponders: “I found myself writing about failure a lot. I realised I’m just as happy disappearing down a hole as when I’ve just climbed a mountain.”

But one of Batt’s biggest failures still rankles. He’s convinced theatre critics “ganged up” on The Hunting Of The Snark, his 1990 West End musical starring Kenny Everett. Based on Lewis Carroll’s poem, it closed after just seven weeks. It has since gained a reputation of a lost treasure among theatre buffs.

The accompanying Snark album features such diverse talents as Roger Daltrey, John Gielgud, John Hurt and George Harrison. Batt is working on an expanded edition, to give it a first proper release in Britain.

“I’m not going to retire,” insists Batt. “While I’m on the road, I’m going to keep travelling down it. If I were to retire, what would I do? Write more songs, probably.”

With that, Batt heads off to Wimbledon Common. There are more Wombles to meet.

The Closest Thing To Crazy: My Life of Musical Adventures, by Mike Batt (Nine Eight Books, £22) is out now. Visit or call Express Bookshop on 020 3176 3832. Free UK P&P on orders over £25