His music brought him global fame but Southampton-born singer-songwriter Mike Batt will always be known as Mr Womble.

The Wombles were those fictional pointy-nosed furry creatures who lived in burrows on Wimbledon Common helping the environment by collecting and recycling rubbish in creative ways.

Mike turned them into large-than-life characters and Great Uncle Bulgaria along with his fellow Wombles became a pop cult which stormed up the charts with some catchy singles.

Now 75 years old, Mike has chartered the runaway success of the pop phenomenon he created and his own incredible life story in his biography, The Closest Thing to Crazy: My Life of Musical Adventures, which has just hit the bookshelves.

For many years Mike teased his fans with extracts from an in-progress autobiography on his website and social media, perhaps testing the waters.

Now the long-awaited biography by the singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, record producer, director and conductor coincides with the 50th anniversary of The Wombles.

Southampton born, he attended Peter Symonds, Winchester and his blog refers to his role as the school's cadet company sergeant major.

He launched his pop music career at the age of 18 when he answered a Liberty Records' advertisement in the New Musical Express.

Mike initially signed as a songwriter and artist to the label but became head of A&R only months later at the age of 19.

He signed and produced Tony McPhee's The Groundhogs and produced their first album, Scratching the Surface. In 1969 Mike released as producer/artist a Liberty single, his cover version of The Beatles, Your Mother Should Know.

By the age of 23 he was producing The Wombles, releasing eight single records, including Rember You're A Womble, The Wombling Song and Wombling Merry Christmas, as well as scooping four Gold Records.

As a songwriter his hits included the legendary Bright Eyes for Art Garfunkel and Nine Million Bicycles for Katie Melua while his material has been covered by many other internationally famed performers.

He is the only composer to have won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Film Music two years in succesion for Watership Down and Caravans.

Mike has collaborated with Tim Rice, co-written with Andrew Lloyd Webber and worked with chart topping acts like Linda Lewis and Steeleye Span.

He launched his own record label, Dramatico in 2002 working with a small group of artists including Katie Melua, Carla Bruni and Marianne Faithfull.

As a conductor, the musical maestro has worked with some of the world's top orchestras.

The cover image of his book makes it clear that he is still well known as the Wombles Man. Dive inside this 368-page memoir and you will see how his fascinating roller coaster life has unfolded, sometimes teetering on the edge with some big financial risks.

The first few chapters cover Mike's early life spent in Southampton and his determination to make it in the music business is quite lighthearted with lots of quips.

There are two chapters devoted to the two years of Womble Mania when the quirky pop sensations never seemed to be out of the charts or off our screens.

Their army of fans could not get enough of their exploits.

Mike asked his mother to make him an Orinoco Womble costume to get his record company's attention and his whole family hastily made three more costumes overnight when the non-existent pop group was offered a slot on Top of the Pops.

Mike explained his strategy was to quickly follow up his first hit single. “Did the world need another Womble song ? I did not care what the world needed; I needed another.”

He ended up signing a multi-album contract including a solo deal and buying a large house he had his eye on.

“To maintain the momentum I would put a new single out just as the previous one was dropping in the charts,” he said.

Sadly another life-changing project that ran out of money after years of work was Mike's attempt to relaunch The Wombles with a high-quality CGI television series after buying the character and production rights.

But he writes in the book how performing a full one-hour live Wombles set for the first and only time at Glastonbury in 2011 was “one of the happiest hours of my life.”

He says he always loved The Wombles despite their potential effect on his credibility and he appreciates the joyful experience they have given him and their army of fans.

The fictional cuddly creatures became national treasures along with their creator who will always be known as the Womble Man.

The Closest Thing to Crazy: My Life of Musical Adventures is published by Nine Eight Books and can be ordered from Amazon.