Inspirational Quotes by Elisabeth Beresford (British Children’s Writer)

Elisabeth Beresford (1926–2010,) also Liza Beresford, was a British children’s writer. She is celebrated as the creator of The Wombles, a surreal family of creatures featured in a series of popular children’s books and subsequently in a highly successful television series.

Born in Paris, Beresford was educated in Sussex. She worked as a radio operator in the Women’s Royal Naval Service during World War II. She began her freelance writing career soon after training as a journalist and becoming a radio reporter. She published her first children’s book in 1957 and her first for adults in 1963.

Inspired by a remark made by her daughter during a Boxing Day stroll on Wimbledon Common, Beresford created the Wombles. The books feature a community of furry, long-nosed burrowing creatures who live peacefully under the parkland of south-west London’s Wimbledon Common, emerging secretly to tidy up and repurpose the rubbish left behind by humans.

Beresford featured the Wombles, each of which was based on one of her friends or relatives, in more than 20 books, beginning with The Wombles (1968) and ending with The Wombles Go Round the World (1976.)

The Wombles, which eventually expanded to adventures, became more ambitious, and included other communities beyond Wimbledon Common, were incredibly successful as stop-motion animated puppets on British television in the 1970s; additional animated episodes were broadcast 1998–99.

Beresford also wrote adventure stories for children and a Magic series of fantasy books. Beresford wrote “romantic thrillers” for adults, notably Escape to Happiness (1964,) A Tropical Affair (1967,) and A Passionate Adventure (1983.)

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