Most people did, didn’t they? Mine was to request a splurge gun fight for me and my friends, just like in Bugsy Malone. I still can’t understand why such a simple and televisual idea wasn’t picked, but there we go. Perhaps it’s for the best.
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Moose the Mooche says
As Alan Bennett remarked, there’s no period of history as strange as the recent past.
Rigid Digit says
I was invited to milk a cow blindfolded …
Gatz says
A kid in my year at school was on it. He got to drive a tractor, which was apparently his heart’s desire. His father ran a little newsagents near my home and the badge took pride of place in the window for a couple of weeks.
hedgepig says
I did. I was 4. I can’t remember what I asked for, but it’s a whole thing in my family that I wrote it to DEAR JIMLL. I thought it was his name.
Jaygee says
Be careful what you wish for and all that…
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/apr/01/the-day-i-thwarted-jimmy-savile-mark-lawson-on-trying-to-stop-britains-worst-sex-offender
Paul Wad says
Everybody heard the necrophilia stories didn’t they? I just put them down as playground jokes. I can’t honestly say I recall any paedophile rumours though. That’s not to say I didn’t, but it’s impossible to separate any pre-death rumours with all the horror stories we now know as fact.
Actually, that’s not true if I think about it. I’m pretty much sure I didn’t, because I remember just seeing him as odd right up to his death (I was working in Leeds at the time of his death and found it bizarre walking past the line of people queuing up outside the hotel so they could go in and pay their respects), rather than disgusting, which I certainly would have had I heard those rumours. I’m a trained Sick Children’s Nurse and did post-registration courses on child abuse and neglect, and I’ve seen too many examples of it for it not to sicken me. Having said that, when it all came out it didn’t exactly surprise me.
Gatz says
It’s the necrophilia stories I remember hearing at school. When I was older I put them down to Savile being known to watch over bodies at Stoke Mandeville. I seem to remember Tom Hibbert making direct reference to that in his Who the Hell … ? with Savile for Q. I’ve still got the early magazine and will see if it can dig it out.
hedgepig says
Yep, also heard the corpse-bothering stories as a tall playground tale, and put them down as such. Everyone had a good laugh but didn’t believe a word. Just goes to show, dunnit?
Gatz says
Here’s the extract from the Hibbett interview (Q, November 1990).
Vincent says
What I’d like to know is whether any of the millions of communications sent to “Childline” over several decades, just happened to suggest our eccentric funster was, in some respects, something of a wrong ‘un. JS sometimes took a keen interest in the proceedings.
Boneshaker says
When I was at school in the 1970s one of the playground jingles we hilariously made up for our amusement was a ditty with the side-splitting refrain of ‘Jim’ll f**k it for you….and you….and you’ to the Jim’ll Fix It theme tune.
Clearly we were ahead of our time, even at the tender age of 11.
johnw says
I’ve just looked it up and it seems I was 16. So I was too old to write to the show but not too young to know he wasn’t a first class creep. His popularity always baffled me.
Twang says
I was a bit old for it and already thought he was a creep.
dai says
My brother was playing in a brass band in Leeds at a function that Savile attended. the whole band was lined up and introduced him one by one, my brother’s verdict? “creepy”
mikethep says
A friend of mine was rejected by JS. She was in the audience for TOTP at age 14 or so. Some BBC flack rounded up a bunch of kids – “would you like to meet Jimmy?” – and took them along to his dressing room. He looked them over, picked out two or three, and waved the rest out.
H.P. Saucecraft says
The thing about Saville is you can’t even grudgingly allow him respect for his art – he was a foul shit with no talent at all except for self-promotion. I remember rumours of him having sex with corpses long before his other predilections came to light. Somebody who knew somebody, that kind of information chain. We treated it as a sick joke at the time, because it’s one of those things you can’t (or we couldn’t) believe possible. But yes, Jim wasn’t just in hospitals for the kids.
mikethep says
I remember rumours about Dusty Springfield years – decades, even – before she came out. And there was something about Kenneth More too, can’t remember what.
H.P. Saucecraft says
What? Dusty a necro?
mikethep says
No, silly.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Dusty silly?
Colin H says
Curiously, I remember hearing rumours about Jimi’s necro activities at school in the mid 80s. In Belfast. And if in Belfast then surely it was doing the rounds in the rest of the UK. At the time, presumably everyone thought it was a grotesque wind-up – but a tale like that must have come from somewhere. Someone started that tale spreading. Clearly it didn’t spread to the right places.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Wow – I was typing my comment as you were typing yours, Colin.
(Edit -these “rumours” started at least as far back as the seventies)
Twang says
I had it on reliable info from a producer who worked at the Beeb in the 80s. More the paedo than necro side as I recall. He told me all about the cover up due to charity activities etc, plus dark talk about how he was “protected”. I was slightly surprised at the national nervous breakdown when it came out as everyone I knew was aware of his disgusting behaviour.
H.P. Saucecraft says
“More pedo than necro” – you can’t say he was totally undiscriminating.
Twang says
Only based on the info I have. I think I’d remember necro.
Moose the Mooche says
Well, there are plenty of children at the BBC but not many dead people.
Except John Humphrys.
H.P. Saucecraft says
I’m watching the new Netflix doc. A series of interviews with people who damn well knew what he was, and did nothing. And revealing snippets from the monster himself “I’m tricky – you never get caught if you’re tricky.” And there’s the Steve Coogan movie coming up …
retropath2 says
Yep, just watched that too. Only the briefest glance at the Louis Theroux interview/doc, which, at the time, seemed to be the first to give weight to the rumours so effectively suppressed thereto.
The Gary Glitter appearance on JFI looked well dodgy in hindsight, with what we know about each. And what it looks they knew about each other.
It has put me off the Coogan biopic, to be fair, there being no way I can see that even his broad brush could make it entertaining. Prurient, maybe, and voyeuristic, yes. No, ta. (Except I bet I will at least start it.)
Martin Hairnet says
The Louis Theroux doc. was dynamite. What struck me (among many things) was how stark and impersonal his home life seemed to be – verging on the ascetic. A cigar, a shell suit, and four plain walls. The only person he talked about with any fondness was ‘The Dutchess’ – his mother.
Jaygee says
LT subsequently went on to say in interviews that far from seeing through SoVile, he was so taken in that he sometimes had the man stay over in his house on visits London
H.P. Saucecraft says
No mention of his penchant for the corpse, though but, which was strange. A totally damning doc – damning of everybody who let him get away with it as much as the criminal. The BBC, the police, the showbiz buddies, the politicians, and the royal family. A few journos came out of it well – Lyn Barber, surprisingly.
I’m going to give Coogan a chance – I don’t think he’d have taken the gig if it was anything less than total destruction. Prurient? How can it possibly be prurient?
Moose the Mooche says
Genuine question – why ‘Lyn Barber, surprisingly’…?
H.P. Saucecraft says
I can’t remember liking her, or reading her, come to that. I have her filed as Glenda Slag. I was evidently wrong.
Hawkfall says
Lynn Barber interviewed him for The Independent (I think) in the early 90s and it’s included in her book of interviews, “Mostly Men”, which is actually pretty good. In the interview, she raised the rumours of him having a thing for little girls and his response was to do all the “oooh, ahh, now then” patter and then give an explanation that because of his job he’s always going to be around youngsters and so that it was natural these rumours existed etc.
Moose the Mooche says
Well, taking an instant dislike to people does save time.
H.P. Saucecraft says
I have wasted not a second on you, heartface.
Moose the Mooche says
Ohhhhh, innee bollllllllld!
retropath2 says
Watching hideous bad stuff that you know is hideous bad out of a moral outrage that needs a regular feed.
(To HP querying prurience)
H.P. Saucecraft says
That’s more moral grandstanding than prurience, which involves sexual arousal. Let’s ask the internet:
Characterized by an inordinate interest in sex: prurient thoughts.
Arousing or appealing to an inordinate interest in sex: prurient literature.
Inordinately interested in matters of sex; lascivious.
retropath2 says
Hence my use of the word: some will watch for a vicarious thrill, whilst roundly denouncing.
Jaygee says
That look on Savile’s face at the start of the second part of the doc where he is showing the “portrait” (a series of angry slashes) the girl in Stoke Man drew of him is truly sickening.
If you want to see how many people in the BBC are culpable, read the Mark Lawson article I linked above – it’s truly gobsmacking
Boneshaker says
What is truly gobsmacking is that nothing was done for so long given the seemingly overwhelming body of evidence. To say that times and values were different in the 70s, 80s, 90s – whenever – just doesn’t explain away how so many people were duped, and why the ones who did know were so reluctant to act. It’s truly mind-boggling, especially as in addition to Savile, other scumbags like Cyril Smith and Clement Freud got away with it completely.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
My reaction to Jimmy Saville was like everyone else I knew – “Can’t understand why he’s so popular. He’s a crap DJ, he’s downright weird. He does stand awfully close to all them young girls on TOTP so he’s obviously a dirty old man. But you’ve got admit he does raise all that money for charity so he must be a bit of a saint really.”
Moose the Mooche says
He raised a lot of money for charity. Charity begins at home. Does this film question the fact that he lived rather well for someone who was on the radio for one hour a week and a half-hour TV show about 12 weeks a year?
BBC money was crap in those days – Victoria Wood had a spot on the hugely popular That’s Life every week and still couldn’t afford to sign off.
Lodestone of Wrongness says
Think you’ll find there was a time when no fête or supermarket or new branch of Currys could be opened by anyone else than Savile. Expect the pittance he got from the BBC went on cigars…
Gatz says
The 1990 Hibbert article I mention above claims he commanded £10k for any sort of public appearance, equivalent to about £24k now according to the Bank of England inflation calculator.
Moose the Mooche says
Oh yes. And then there was the British Rail adverts. As if their image could have been made any worse.
Jaygee says
The other celeb who shilled for BR was of course, Paul Gadd – who fronted of all things The campaign for Young Person’s Railcards
This is the (under) age of the train as JS might have put it
fentonsteve says
The turd previously known as Glitter played at my Students’ Union in 1989/90. I was on the tech crew.
Not only was he creepy*, he was an absolute shit. Tantrum after tantrum during the soundcheck, like a short-arse wrinkly toddler. He simply didn’t get that he was only booked as a joke.
According to a housemate who went, he put on a good show, but I – along with several others of the volunteer crew – walked out of the afternoon soundcheck and only went back to de-rig once he’d left the building.
Little did we know, etc.
(*) paging H.P.
Jaygee says
I remember he played at Coventry Locarno at the height of his fame in the early 70s. While I didn’t go, a couple of mates from school did. When GG came put his hand out into the crowd for his adoring fans to reach out and touch, one of them hawked up a big greenie in GG’s palm
fentonsteve says
Today’s tea/keboard moment. And it still isn’t 10 o’clock.
The Muswell Hillbilly says
There’s money in pimping children to high ranking members of first the BBC and then the Catholic Church.
Money and, ultimately, patronage.
dai says
Jim’ll Fit It was a huge success. Probably 20 million viewers or so on a Sat night. I imagine he was reasonably compensated.
Jackthebiscuit says
I vaguely recall a former radio one presenter saying that he knew that JS was a wrong un, but was unwilling to say anything at the time as he “had his career to think of”.
Jaygee says
While hindsight is a 20:20 thing where SoVile is concerned, “knowing” and “proving” are two very different things.
If I’d had a penny for all of the people who’ve said “Johnny Rotten outed him and got banned from the BBC for telling the truth”, I’d be very rich man.
The only thing that JL said in the radio interview which is on YT is something along the lines of “we all know about Savile”.
Moose the Mooche says
Banned from the BBC – not for being drunk and swearing a lot then.
Arthur Cowslip says
Never suspected anything solid about him. There were rumours of course, but what celebrity doesn’t have rumours about them?
For my thirtieth birthday party, it was a seventies theme and a group of my friends (male and female alike) all dressed up as identical Jimmy Savilles for japes. I hasten to add, this was before it all came out. It was after the Louis Theroux programme though: but even then he was still seen as weird but harmless. Plus we had all grown up with him in the 70s and 80s as a fixture of our childhoods. Anyway, the photos from my thirtieth birthday party now look a bit odd. A dancefloor full of tracksuits, blonde wigs and cigars.
fentonsteve says
My Best Man is from Stilton, a village outside Peterborough, where JS kept a Council Flat.
On a Fri/Sat night after pubs closing time, JS would come to the Social Club and attempt to pick up young men. Presumably he’d had no luck at P’boro hospital morgue.
One of our gang was very fresh-faced for his age (we were in our early 20s). JS made a beeline for him, Jimi placed his hand on his thigh, and our pal shouted “Fuck off Jimmy, you perve”. I heard it from the Gents, having hidden in there as soon as JS’s roller had pulled up outside.
We just found him creepy. Little did we know.
duco01 says
According to the writer Matthew Engel, the town of Stilton is unique in Britain, in that it’s the only place where the High Street is effectively a cul-de-sac. It just comes to a dead end at its southern end, in the form of a locked gate. Bizarre.
Black Type says
I bet the townsfolk are really cheesed off.
Coat on, waiting for taxi…
Arthur Cowslip says
Taxi? Lynch mob more like it, for that joke.
Moose the Mooche says
That joke stinks.
Still, at least it’s not blue.
fentonsteve says
A fairly recent (20 years?) development. The High Street was the A1 Great North Road, a through road, until the bypass was built.
Have I ever mentioned Stilton Cheese Rolling? {Yes, you have! Repeatedly. – The AW}
Moose the Mooche says
They call him Lord Byron but he looks like Milton
I don’t want to go to Stilton
Jaygee says
Last night, I watched a show about how a leering figure with an awful haircut pulled the wool over the collective eyes of the UK with his lies got away scot free with his horrific antics for years and years.
If the news wasn’t bad enough, the NF doc about SoVile was even more chilling
Moose the Mooche says
But he was such a character with his funny hair and his funny voice, and he did a great job personally saving the NHS. I think naysayers need to get a life, the woke snowflakes and remember that BoJo Fixed it For Us 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧
deramdaze says
I said exactly this to my wife last night.
The person who Savile reminds me most in 2022 is not Gary Glitter, Max Clifford, Stuart Hall, Rolf Harris et al.
It’s Fat Boy J… and he’s hiding in plain sight.
Absolutely every character trait exhibited by Savile, Johnson has in spades.
He does exactly what he wants to do with the full approval of the British establishment (including the Queen) and he doesn’t give a shit about anyone.
They’re like two peas in a pod.
Any disdain, or even passing interest, in Savile is wasted time which should be spent on calling out Johnson.
hedgepig says
Holy shit.
deramdaze says
You don’t agree? You do agree?
hedgepig says
I do not agree that the Prime Minister, who I think is a bad Prime Minister of a bad government, is indistinguishable from the worst paedophile, rapist and necrophiliac in British criminal history, no.
deramdaze says
Fine. I think you’re wrong. The character traits of the two are indistinguishable and Fat Boy has the full might of the British establishment, including the police force, protecting him every inch of the way. That sure sounds like Savile to me.
Oh, and they’re both ugly buggers.
fortuneight says
He’s fat, he’s ugly. Ever thought of leaving the playground?
Jaygee says
While we all agree Johnson is a piss-poor PM, your obsession with him is bordering on the unhealthy, D
Gatz says
I’ve said before that had Savile still been around, notwithstanding that he would be in his 90s, and of course, assuming his crimes were not as yet public, Johnson would have dragooned him into a double act.
Black Type says
My rather tenuous claim to fame is that my late father-in-law punched Savile down the stairs in a Leeds nightclub, when he wasn’t quite the Big I Am protected by heavies that he became. Les Dawson (yes, really) always knew he was a wrong ‘un.
MC Escher says
Wait, your FIL was Les Dawson? Or just a Les Dawson?
Jaygee says
Did he say “You’ll go to the foot of our stairs” as he landed that telling uppercut on the aging nonce’s chin?
Moose the Mooche says
All Northern families had a Les Dawson. They are supplied by the council.
Black Type says
The other Les Dawson 😏
H.P. Saucecraft says
BOOOOO! We’ve all gone off you.
Colin H says
As an aside, the subject of the biography I’m working on (off and on, in between economic activity), Big Pete Deuchar, was a friend of Savile in the 50s and 60s – the connection being road racing (cycling) competitions in the early 50s and then the music biz in the mid 60s. Savile mentioned/puffed Pete’s records in his newspaper pop music columns a few times and there is a 1964 PR pic with both in it, fooling around with a bicycle. Interviewees who were around at that time state that no one was remotely aware of any of the stuff that later came out – not even rumours. I’m certain Deuchar wouldn’t have been anywhere near him if there’d been a hint of it. On the upside, reference to Savile being mentioned in a Deuchar interview in an obscure trade union magazine in the 60s on the David Icke website (!) led me to finding that interview, in the British Library – which I wouldn’t otherwise have done.
Franco says
My younger brother runs a barbers on the outskirts of Leeds . About twenty years ago one of his regular customers, a detective based at Millgarth visibly winced when a picture of Savile appeared on the shops television. He went on to say that that all the rumours were true but the police had been specifically ordered by some shadowy Whitehall department to ignore and not act on any of the accusations regarding Savile’s behaviour. Sounds like just another drop in the vast ocean of ridiculous conspiracy theories? Not really.
Moose the Mooche says
I can’t remember if he’s referred to indirectly in David Peace’s Red Riding series, but Val McDermid didn’t pull any punches. Apart from actually saying “THIS IS ABOUT JIMMY SAVILE” in big letters on the front cover she couldn’t have made it more obvious.
Jaygee says
The legend that was Jocko Vance…
Moose the Mooche says
She pinched the idea from Stephen King, of course.
dai says
I also heard the necrophilia rumours before his death. That would clearly be a lesser offence but has anything been proven regarding this? As someone said above, the victims are not going to come forward
H.P. Saucecraft says
The man who knew where the bodies were buried was his driver. Not sure if he’d dead yet. But he was involved in his boss’s private life, and never, as far as I know, “told out of school”.
yorkio says
Ray Teret. He died last year in Strangeways, where he’d been serving a life sentence for a whole string of offences dating back to the 60s.
H.P. Saucecraft says
Blimey.
Jaygee says
Probably the most gullible of those SoVile took in was the guy who paid something like £100K for his Roller to ferry kids around for various charities a few days after he died and before the stories broke
dai says
It’s very easy to say it was obvious something was going on and he should have been stopped. Here is my story of child abuse, it doesn’t involve me (directly)
We lived on a street in a Welsh valleys town that had a strong sense of community, everybody knew everybody else, families socialised together, kids played together. One of our neighbours was an elderly man or seemed so at the time to a teenager. I am guessing he was about 60 or so, he lived with his wife in a flat that backed on to our part of the street. He was always well dressed, very friendly, a well respected man in our neighbourhood. Let’s call him Mr T (not that one)
I think I was 14, was very friendly with some twins who lived opposite us who were 16, at some point Mr T started taking these boys (together or separately) for rides in the nearby countryside. Our parents were aware that this was going on and nobody batted an eyelid, good old Mr T taking the boys out in his lovely car. What a nice guy.
One time I was talking to one of my friends, let’s call him John. He told me what happened on at least one of these rides. They stopped somewhere quiet, Mr T requested to see John’s penis. He obliged, then Mr T asked if he could touch it. John did not say no. I didn’t hear if anything else happened. Did I go running to my parents, his parents, the police? No, I didn’t. I thought it was strange but we didn’t really understand what was going on. And Mr T was such a nice fella.
I haven’t been in touch with John for decades, I hope he has had a good life. Mr T will have been dead for many years, I hope he had a miserable one and I really hope he didn’t abuse others, but I know he probably did 🙁
Black Celebration says
I am hoping that most people have no memories of creepy adults from their childhood but I do know of one local “character” that ended up in the clink. This was a lone man in his mid 30s who had invested in arcade video games and invited young boys from my school into his house to play them. Price of admission – free, but you had to take your shirt off. Yikes.
I remember talking about him and one boy saying “he’s actually all right…”.
NigelT says
A couple of Saville stories….
A DJ friend of mine was running mobile discos way back when they all started – JS warned him that if he tried to muscle in on his territory then he would be found floating in the river.
JS was attending an open day at the nearby Marine training centre back in the 90s….I wasn’t there, but he apparently ruffled my daughter’s hair and made admiring remarks about her blonde hair. Shudder….
H.P. Saucecraft says
A word that comes up frequently in discussions about Savile is “creepy”. He may have seemed creepy to those who had no idea what he was doing, as in “seems like a wrong ‘un”, back before the story broke. But “creepy” is totally inadequate to describe the evil that he did, which was not “just” molesting kids (which in itself surpasses creepiness). He was an evil man on an unimaginable scale. He abused and assaulted hundreds of human beings from five to seventy-five, and the dead. He betrayed the trust and love and respect given him by individuals, institutions, and the nation. He “did good”, not for its own sake, but to balance out the evil he knew he was doing. He knew he was evil, but he never confessed (except in those hilarious “hidden in plain sight” comments), never expressed any shred of human sympathy or guilt. He lived entirely to satisfy his obscene and cruel lust, which he exercised again and again, without restraint.
There’s a bit in that Netflix doc (already referred to in a comment), which shows him at the bedside of a paralysed little girl. He shows the camera a picture she drew of him – if you pause the image, you can see clearly it’s the face of the devil. “Now what,” asks kindly Uncle Jim, “did I ever do to you that deserves that?” In a weak little voice on the edge of despair, she says, “everything.”
dai says
Yes you are right.
H.P. Saucecraft says
And another thing – Savile may suffer eternal torment in hell, according to your belief system, but how can that compare to the hell he put that little girl through? Her hell (and already her life was pretty much just suffering) was intensified by her innocence – his at least he’ll know is merited. But what kind of reward or consolation can she hope for in heaven? Other than complete and utter forgetfulness? And if there is no settling of accounts in a “next life”, if there is no next life – how can we understand the evil at work here which good is absolutely powerless to fight? Is it possible to be as good as Savile was evil? Can the books ever be balanced?
Yes, yes, I know … let’s get back to re-assessing some pop star’s career. We can at least get to grips with that. Savile is so far out of anyone’s comfort zone that he, and his acts, will always be incomprehensible, and the suffering he caused, the lives he ruined, beyond the remit of any God we may care to conjure up, or any rational response we can formulate.
Jaygee says
While I don’t believe in heaven, I sure do hope that there’s a hell
Paul Wad says
Although obviously not to the extreme of those he abused, imagine how all the people who felt they had been “saved” by Savile must feel. By that I mean all those who received treatment or care in facilities that were heavily funded by Savile’s mask, his charity work. For years they will believe they “owed” their health/life to Savile, because without him they may not have received the life saving/changing treatment. Knowing why he raised the money must surely give them immense conflict. I know it would me, if, say, my surgeon was revealed to be a character like him. The man f*cked up countless lives whilst he was alive and continued f*cking up lives long after he died.
Mike_H says
My inner cynic thinks Savile mainly “did good” for access to victims and for cover.
Arthur Cowslip says
I agree it’s a mistake to confuse criminality with creepiness. It’s all too easy to do in hindsight with slow motion footage and ominous music. I NEVER thought of Savile as creepy. Odd, maybe, but no odder than (off the top of my head) Timmy Mallett, Noel Edmonds, Tiny Tim, Russ Abbott, Kenny Everett or Tommy Cooper. Kids love wacky and weird personalities.
hedgepig says
After Louis Theroux I thought he was deeply bizarre and made Oedipus look like Eminem. I might’ve said creepy: he had a rep for being handsy, but no more than any of the other GreatMates of Wunnerful Rayjo Wun – and then there was the playground necro stuff which I’d dismissed as pure “[pop star] + pints of cum + stomach pump” urban gross-out legend.
I had no suspicion of the magnitude of his evil. I was – still am – truly shocked by it. (I still don’t think a lot of people really take it quite as seriously as they should – I don’t know how anyone could read @h-p-saucecraft’s furious and brilliant posts on here without grasping at least part of it, but some people are determined to ride their hobbyhorse and pay no attention to what it’s clopping over.)
But yeah. I had no clue. A weird, probably handsy, mum-obsessed old eccentric, was what I thought. I’m not sure creepy was even in my head, but then, it’s hard to remember. My impressions of him then are hard to extricate from what I know now.
Arthur Cowslip says
I think maybe the reason more people don’t take it more seriously is that the actual specifics of what he did aren’t really that well publicised? Sounds odd to say that, but 99% of the coverage of Jimmy Savile is non-specific stuff about how evil he was and how creepy he looks, and speculation about what can’t be proven like the necrophilia stuff, but not very much about what he actually did. Maybe it’s to be sensitive to the victims, I suppose.
Leicester Bangs says
Great point about the whole Radio One culture. One of the flaws of the documentary to which HPS refers is its failure to contextualise his above-ground, in-public behaviour. All we see is Savile being sleazy, and viewed through the prism of today the overall impression is one of ‘how could he get away with that?’ But being a dirty old man was pretty much the stock in trade of the time.
Jaygee says
Even John Peel used to harp on about schoolgirls.
hedgepig says
“Even” John Peel would probably be getting his collar felt if he’d not had the good luck to die before Yewtree. Unfortunately I think he’d get “music fan” people who’d queue up to put the boot into Glitter or Savile defending or contextualising his behaviour even now, because he’s not naff. I hope I’m wrong about that.
Jaygee says
You’re right.
Same principle applies to Pete “i was only researching a book” Townshend
hedgepig says
Aaand 3… 2… 1…
Rigid Digit says
Ted Rodgers?
Moose the Mooche says
I’m reliably informed his brains burn in hell.
Jaygee says
Possessed and controlled by the demonic entity known as Doostahben
chiz says
Gary Glitter – bang to rights.
Bill Wyman – too boring to worry about
Jimmy Page – it was different back then
Paul Wad says
Harp on? He married one! And the story is that he pretty much fled America after fathers of other young girls voiced their intent to hand out retribution.
Black Type says
Having watched the documentary (and others) and read the attendant reviews and comments, I noted on Facebook that If all the people coming out now to say they couldn’t stand watching Jimmy Savile were genuine, he wouldn’t even have been on TV.
Jaygee says
Like they say in Usual Suspects: ‘A man can convince anyone he’s somebody else, but never himself.’
Regardless of what people say now, Sovile took them in by the millions for, what, half a century?
Having spent a couple of weeks with the man when filming his LT Meets film even a journalist as canny as Louis Theroux admits that SoVile blindsided him.
Sitheref2409 says
A prophet with honour in his own land (1987):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwUHNGq96iw
Boneshaker says
That really shouldn’t be funny….but it is.
mutikonka says
Our Leeds school class wrote to Savile asking if we could re-enact something from Bugsy Malone, even though many of us saw him about town. I did some voluntary work at LGI [Leeds Infirmary} on the hospital radio station (hello Ivan Brackenbury). Savile had his own de facto office there with the hospital porters, which had a kind of fairground waltzer operator-bully vibe. He signed off my Duke of Edinburgh Award voluntary service declaration with his smiley signature, including the O.B.E. Even at the time (late 70s) I was surprised by how nobody questioned his bona fides and how he got an entry into respectable society.
Barry Blue says
I worked for a ladmag in the 1990s, and in the space of a few months interviewed Savile, Stuart Hall and Geoff Boycott. It may have been a series on ‘English eccentrics’, I can’t really remember; I never kept copies of stuff I wrote. Now it would be a series on English criminals (Boycott might deny that, but French courts would say otherwise)
I spent a day with each of them, and met Savile at the flat overlooking Roundhay Park. The cab driver at Leeds Station told me that the last time he’d been to ‘Jim’s’ it had been with a carload of ‘underage prostitutes’. I asked if I could quote him, and he said absolutely not, because ‘Jim’s people’ would sort him out. Then he said he was joking, anyway. There was that parallel process at work, just like Savile’s MO of explicit statements followed by a backtracking/attempted joke.
My day with Savile was dull, he was obfuscatory and as unfunny as he’d always been on our screens. He approached people in the street rather than them coming up to him, and it was all sad and banal.
Of the three, Savile, Hall and Boycott, it pains me to say that Boycott was the only one I had a go at. He’d been the cliched ‘I’m Yorkshire, me, I say what I mean and I mean what I say’ all day, and when we were on our way to do photos, there was one too many ‘Son, you know nowt’ and I said ‘How about you fuck off? How about you fuck off and we don’t do any photos?’ He instantly became charm personified. Shame I didn’t do that with Savile.
Leicester Bangs says
I’ve got to know — which ladmag?
Barry Blue says
FHM. Don’t tell anyone.
Incidentally, the book to read is In Plain Sight: The Life & Lies Of Jimmy Savile by Dan Davies. Dan was in the audience for an episode of Jim’ll Fix It when he was 9, and he had a sense there was something not quite right about Savile, and he later spent a decade of his journalism career attempting to somehow prove this.
Leicester Bangs says
Yes, I’ve read it. Superb.
Jaygee says
Terrific opening about Saville’s corpse being found with fingers crossed.
Harrowing but brilliant read.
Hard to see it being bettered
Barry Blue says
Very true. I did a piece about 70s wrestling for a mag years and years ago, and I included some bits from Simon Garfield’s brilliant The Wrestling book. I was talking about the Savile references (and quotes) in that book with Dan D, and he said, “The thing about wrestling is…Jim fixed it’
Jaygee says
That Simon G book is terrific, too. God, my dad loved the wrestling back then. Highlight of his week was if Les Kellett was on
Barry Blue says
Garfield’s hunt for Kellett is a real highlight of the book, as is the tale of Adrian Street stamping on Les’s hand to get rid of an infection.
Black Celebration says
Wrestlers were big stars in the 70s in that 4pm Saturday slot just before the football scores. I think every fight was fixed, to be fair. I was told that you couldn’t bet on it.
Barry Blue says
Of course. Jackie Pallo blew the lid (not that it was on very tightly) with his autobiography’You grunt, I’ll groan’.
Black Celebration says
Great title!
Moose the Mooche says
I was expecting that book to be about a very different form of entertainment.
(Well, maybe not VERY different)
Bamber says
I first became aware of the allegations about Saville through seeing Jerry Sadowitz live in 1987 (see above) not long after moving to London from Dublin. I was very familiar with him from the BBC but the rumours hadn’t reached my ears in Dublin.
I went on to work in social work from around 1989 and his name was mentioned anecdotally in social work circles but I don’t recall anything specific. In the 90s I started to hear about Rolf Harris from people who were indiscreet enough to mention him but not enough to elaborate.
Paul Wad says
I saw Sadowitz in Edinburgh, a few years after Savile died, and he came out dressed as Savile and opened with 10-15 minutes of Savile jokes.
Black Celebration says
Savile did a two hour radio show – possibly on GLR in the early 90s. Completely unscripted and lacking in warmth, purpose or energy – it was a tough listen. His sidekick was a newsreader called Duncan, who Savile called “Dignified Duncan”. Duncan seemed to be the world’s nicest, most polite young man. Stilted bantz from Savile tended to involve faux-chuckling from Duncan, i.e. pretending to laugh, something which was obvious to everyone but not, I sensed, to Savile. Duncan would read out an item and Savile would comment. It was like when Basil Brush would interrupt Mr Roy while he was reading a story but without Basil’s comic timing and likability.
If you’re in a pub and a toothless, wheezing old man starts to tells you a shit joke – you listen for a polite period of time and then get away as soon as you can. Savile’s show was a bit like that for two hours.
Boneshaker says
How the bastard must have laughed when he got this gig.