Guru

Disciple Sue has gone and got all excited about one of Guru's articles in last week's Personnel Today entitled 'Nutty way to treat migrant workers'.

The piece centred on the despicable activities of gangmasters in Cornwall, who deprived Bulgarian workers of their pay for 35 days. The immigrants were forced to forage for potatios and courgettes to survive.

Guru simply wondered what the world's most famous Bulgarian and head of the Wombles, Great Uncle Bulgaria (pictured, centre), would think of the situation.

Sue responded:

Guru, I was alarmed at your mention of Great Uncle Bulgaria. Not because I find Wombles particularly alarming in themselves, but because I suddenly realised the extent of the exploitation of migrant workers.

Is the Wombles an overlooked political comment on migrant workers across the decades?

Wasn't Great Uncle Bulgaria - and indeed his extended Womblish family - employed in the tidying of rubbish on the bleak and windswept Wimbledon Common? I had always assumed (naively) that this was through choice, and that the Wombles were before-their-time pioneers of recycling and waste management.

Now, thanks to your article, I am appraised of their true status. Eastern European, South American and heaven-knows-where-else hairy migrant workers forced to pick litter at the hands of a greedy Womblemaster, scrabbling on hands and knees to earn sufficient nuts for Madam Cholet to make a roast.

We must act. We must set up a Womble rights movement... I have it! Stop Womble Exploitation Action Taskforce (SWEAT). Would you like to join?

Guru can't help thinking that Sue needs more help than the migrant workers.