The Closest Thing to Madness by Mike Batt (Nine Eight Books £22, 368 pp)

The closest thing to madness is available now from the mail bookstore

“I actually have a dog called Womble,” said Mike Batt’s biggest fan, the late Queen Elizabeth II. She also loved his song The Closest Thing To Crazy, which Terry Wogan regularly played on Radio Two , while Her Majesty was having breakfast.

Batt was asked to compose music for the golden wedding of the Queen and Prince Philip, which was performed by the massive bands of the Coldstream, Grenadier, Scottish, Irish and Welsh Guards.

Fourteen Wombles, in military uniform, marched in front of the Queen Mother during her hundredth birthday parade.

Batt, a frequent guest at receptions and sleepovers at Buckingham Palace, was eventually appointed lieutenant in the Royal Victorian Order.

Otherwise, it hasn’t always been easy.

As Batt says in his uplifting memoir: “I’m too classical for the rock people and too rock for the classical people; too weird for middle of the road people, too middle of the road for weird people.

Nevertheless, it is unique, as if Gilbert, Sullivan and D’Oyly Carte were one.

In 1979, Batt’s ballad Bright Eyes from Watership Down, sung by Art Garfunkel, was a number one hit in ten countries, selling 60,000 records a day. Albums composed and produced for Katie Melua have sold in the millions – just as well, since Batt spent £10 million on her TV advert.

Batt has worked closely with The Hollies, Steeleye Span, David Essex, Cliff Richard, and he says of Sting: “It was amazing the way he walked in, picked the most beautiful girl in the room and immediately disappeared upstairs.”

Despite all this activity, Batt remains best known for his Wombles theme song: “Underground, overground, Wombling free, the Wombles of Wimbledon Common, that’s us!” » It all started when he was asked to compose the music for the five-minute stop-frame animated films, broadcast before the BBC1 evening news.

Refusing the £200 fee, Batt said he instead wanted to secure character rights for music-related activities.

The Wombles, who “looked like big mice with hats, scarves and other accessories,” recycled waste left behind by humans and became, thanks to Batt, a national phenomenon.

By 1976, there were three gold albums and nine top 40 hits.

People loved pure stupidity. Batt the Womble was on TV with Cilla and Bernard Cribbins. Joined by a drummer, bassist and guitarist from Womble, Batt appeared on Top Of The Pops, queuing backstage with Bowie and the Bay City Rollers. Signed by CBS, Womble records were purchased by teenagers and adults alike. Fred Astaire has made it known that he approves of the Wombling White Tie And Tails issue.

Royal fan: Queen Elizabeth II was such a fan she named her dog Womble

All this was “very financially lucrative”. Batt bought a Rolls-Royce containing a Bakelite telephone. He was 25 years old.

Born in Southampton, Batt was a musical prodigy who picked up tunes from the radio and could listen to them by ear. He sight-read orchestral scores and wrote lyrics, his inspirations being Shakespeare, Keats and George Formby.

Batt’s father, a borough civil engineer who as a lieutenant colonel rebuilt the port of Tobruk, Libya, during the war, bought his son a grand piano that dominated the front room .

At 17, Batt knew he wanted to be a songwriter: “I was going to get into the music business, like it or not. »

By the age of 19, Batt was a producer at Liberty/United Artists, with a secretary and a large office. He had a particular gift for string and brass arrangements, and he knew how to conduct.

Batt was soon working with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and organizing recording sessions. This time was “exciting, scary, exciting and totally full of joy and energy”, even though everyone smelled of patchouli, since it was the 60s.

Domestically, Batt enjoyed many adventures and “thought about sex most of the day.”

His first wife was Opportunity Knocks finalist Wendy. They lived on a narrow boat fitted with chemical toilets in Surrey. The marriage was, says Batt, a mixture of “euphoria and misery”.

In an attempt to take further inspiration from the former and “escape the shadow of the Wombles”, Batt, his wife and their two children undertook a two-year world voyage on a 200-ton steam yacht built in 1931 by the he man who invented Fox’s Glacier mints.

The journey involved “sadness, danger, discontent and mystical scenes”, i.e. dolphins and sunsets.

It was also a great way to save money. “Uncomfortable calls came in every day from the bank. »

On his return to Britain and between his solo records, Batt worked on his masterpiece, writing the tunes, lyrics and orchestrations for a concept musical album inspired by Carroll’s absurdist poem The Hunting Of The Snark.

John Gielgud was paid £5,000 for a morning’s work as narrator. John Hurt showed up eating whelks out of a bag. He was so drunk that his lines had to be reshot weeks later. George Harrison provided guitar solos.

In 1987 there was a live concert version (with Billy Connolly) at the Royal Albert Hall, and four years later a full stage adaptation, costing £2.2 million, opened in the West End.

Critics crucified Batt, launching “personal attacks that spared no punches.” The show ended.

Batt, who lost a fortune, became “severely clinically depressed,” not surprisingly.

Pop icons: The Wombles recorded eight hit records in 1974 and 1975

There are a lot of disasters in The Closest Thing To Crazy. There’s the tumultuous marriage, “which ultimately ended in an acrimonious and long-awaited separation…constant court appearances and vicious legal correspondence.” Then Batt is almost killed when his car crashes into a concrete wall in Spain, breaking his neck. A corset is screwed into his skull and he is told he must lie still for four months, except two weeks later he is back directing and directing a music video.

As I finished this seething autobiography, I thought it was a miracle that we were allowed to hear a single note of music, because everyone involved in the business is wildly controversial – dodgy accountants, lawyers imposing unenforceable contracts , from fellow artists who steal your concepts, from producers who interfere (“Every part of me wanted to tell them to get lost,” Batt writes), to distributors who won’t distribute (“They killed our record by leaving it on backorder.” stock”) and to companies that promise land and quickly go into liquidation.

So all credit goes to Batt for his perseverance. He remains a great artist. (And he’s long married to Sexy Beast actress Julianne White.)

His book should be read in conjunction with the CD Mike Batt: The Penultimate Collection, which contains 34 classic titles. Christmas gift problems are instantly solved.