Wombles, wombats and urban foxes

I may be about to crush an illusion. Wombles are not real. As a Wimbledon resident with a conscience, I’d like to believe in pioneering, furry environmentalists who toil away unnoticed, picking up “Things that the everyday folks leave behind”. But they don’t exist. Sadly, folks who leave things behind, do. 

Wombats, on the other hand, are very real, as you well know. I’ve seen them, on my one trip to your beautiful island, and have spent some time trying to persuade British friends that my photo of a large round brown object is not, in fact, a bush but the disappearing backside of a supersized marsupial. 

But my brief is not to “Britsplain” your unique and wonderful Australian wildlife to Aussies, something I’ve seen many British celebs do in doco series. All I want to say is that, as far as I know, wombats are rather shy wild animals that stay, er, in the wild, where they are meant to be. By contrast, our somewhat smaller wild mammal, the brazen British fox, has very definitely moved into town.

Urban foxes were so rare during my South London childhood that I clearly remember the first time I spotted a fox on the block, back in the early 70s. Now they’re everywhere. Returning to our house in suburban London after dark, we can easily spot half a dozen. Friends who live in the countryside see perhaps a couple a year. 

Foxes have moved into town because we leave easy pickings for them. Without Wombles to assist us, we are not very good at tidying up after ourselves. Even when we do make an effort, it can be of limited effect.  Wily old Reynard opens our “fox-proof” food waste bins with ease, while the bottles our milkman delivers – I know, I’m so old school that I’m writing this in a top hat – have sometimes been smashed on our doorstep.

Some Londoners hate foxes; some love them. A former kind-hearted, neighbour used to feed them. 

Our next door neighbours have had all four of their chickens killed in their roost. Twice. Another woke up from a nap on the sofa to find a large male fox standing alongside her. The family opposite forgot to close their patio doors one summer night, only to discover a scene of aromatic foxy havoc on their sofa and carpets in the morning. 

I used to be ambivalent about them. We loved it when a vixen had litters of gorgeous cubs beneath our decking, three years running. 

“Live and let live”, I said. 

“They have as much right to live here as we do”, I said. 

Then I had a close encounter of the fox kind. I put the bins out, trod in fox poo then spread it all round the house. My name was mud. Or something smellier perhaps.

Richard Perrins

Posts by Richard Perrins