Barbara Euphan Todd was born in Arksey, Yorkshire on the 9th of January 1890 and was educated at St. Catherine’s School in Bramley in Surrey. At the outbreak of World War One in 1914 she joined the Voluntary Aid Detachment where she remained for the whole of the conflict. Her first published work came in 1924 when she contributed to The ‘normous Fairy Book a collection of children’s stories. Following this she produced a number of fairly modest children’s titles but one of them, Worzel Gummidge or The Scarecrow of Scatterbrook Farm, was so successful that not only did it spawn ten further sequels but also became the title chosen as the very first ’Puffin book’ in 1941, most importantly though it introduced the world to Worzel Gummidge, the walking, talking Scarecrow, a character which, already, has endured for 63 years.

In the first book John and Susan first encounter Worzel whilst staying at Scatterbrook Farm recovering from whooping cough and, in further adventures we are introduced to such characters as the pompous Mrs Bloomsbury-Barton, Saucy Nancy, a ship’s figurehead and a whole army of Scarecrows including Worzel’s fiance, Earthy Mangold, a kind hearted scarecrow who shoos away the hens so that the sparrows can get the grain. Other scarecrows we meet are Worzel’s Aunt Sally, who is his real Aunt, Hannah Harrow, an invalid scarecrow who suffers from, amongst other things, ‘the mice’ and also Upsidaisy, a scarecrow crafted from a three legged milking stool who, naturally, keeps falling over.

However the medium of the book was not large enough to satisfy the public’s growing appetite for the character. In the late 1940’s Worzel became known nationally when his adventures were dramatised by BBC Radio’s ‘Children’s Hour’ and then in 1953, in his first Television outing, he was portrayed by Frank Atkinson in the BBC series Worzel Gummidge Turns Detective. However by 1963 Barbara Euphan Todd had decided to distance herself from the character and so her final Worzel novel, Detective Worzel Gummidge was published. It was the end of the first chapter of Worzel’s life, although the original novels continued to sell steadily and were constantly reprinted Euphan Todd refused to resurrect the character. On 2nd February 1976 Barbara Euphan Todd passed away but the character she created lived on.

By the late 1970’s two of England’s best known writers, Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hall, had seen the potential for a Children’s film in Worzel Gummidge and had written a script, they had the backing but they needed a larger than life actor of enormous versatility and their first choice was Jon Pertwee……...