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  1. People always say ‘they were different times’ is not a defence, but it surely must be to a partial extent, otherwise Peel’s comments would have raised a furore at the time, rather than 40-50 years later.

    That said, we’re in 2022 now and those words are indefensible in today’s climate. I think the name of the stage probably should be changed.

  6. I am very cynical about this and can’t see what will be achieved other than upsetting his family, friends and many fans, As Dai wrote, in his lifetime he was honest about his past.

    But perhaps there has been something in the news in the UK recently which I have not heard about which makes this story topical?

    Anyway, surely it is up to the management of Glastonbury to decide on the naming or renaming of their tents?

    • “upsetting his family, friends and many fans”. You’re right, of course – those considerations should always be foremost in cases of serial sexual abuse.

      • I can’t argue with that.

        I’ve now read the article and Peel doesn’t come out of it very well.

        Why did none of this get mentioned when Glastonbury decided to honour him in the first place?

        I will confess that I am a great fan of Peel’s and am struggling to revise my picture of him.

        Another one bites the dust.

        • That is the problem with the music industry. I can hardly remember a biography of a musician where I have thought ‘nice guy’ after reading it. Nearly always the opposite. If someone entertains you then the default position is to like them and it’s hard to unlike their music or shows.

          • Good point, Alias.

            But if you start to read a biography of any musician, writer, painter or whatever, you probably do so because you enjoy what they create. It’s unlikely that you will then unlike all their works on discovering they were not so pleasant.

            With someone like Peel, there is a good 50 years of “unliking” to do for me and guys of my generation. (He did appeal mostly to men, didn’t he? Or am wrong there?)

            I am not trying to make light of any accusations against Peel, but I can’t help thinking of Lytton Strachey’s 1918 book, Eminent Victorians where he put the boot into the previous generation’s heroes.

    • I tend to agree with you. My understanding is that the woman in question became his wife and tricked him about her age apparently with the collusion of her own mum. He has been very open about it and the article in the Independent appears to be a bit on the sensationalist side. I don’t condone his action whether it was unwittingly carried out or not but neither do I condone a public execution of his memory by people who probably know very little about the circumstances or even the facts. We shouldn’t always bow to the mob

      • His first wife was 15. He was 25. Perfectly legal in Texas at the time.

        The thirteen year old was one of a string of girls he admitted abusing sexually. He joked that he didn’t ask for ID and that the only women available to him were schoolgirls.

  11. I’m sorry chaps, but being honest about your past doesn’t wash if what you were doing was (statutory) raping children, and for a long time, in both America and the UK. Whilst he was being honest, it looked there like he was bragging, rather than being remorseful. It’s not just a one-off ‘I didn’t realise she was only 15’ either, he did it repeatedly. Read the article again, but every time it says John Peel, pronounce it Dave Lee Travis, and see if you feel as generous.

    • Yes but the Independent tries to say she was 13 – 15 is above the age of consent in many countries and she married him so is this what the journalists are saying it is?

        • I haven’t read that particular article but I have read other articles a year or so ago when this subject came up on a different forum. Yes I was referring to his legal marriage but acknowledge that he had relations with other under age girls and I am sure there were numerous other males doing the same thing and numerous females engaging in it totally free of coercion. It is what teenagers did then and what teenagers do now. It is of course questionable behaviour but I don’t necessarily think it was predatory. He was married to his second wife for thirty years until he died and I don’t think she would have knowingly married a predator and his story was in the public domain.
          I really don’t think changing the stage name is anything other than tokenism but that is what floats the boat of the do gooders out there.

      • It’s not easy to find out what the law was back in Texas in those days, but whilst you could get married at 15, wasn’t this still under the age of consent? I’ve also read several times, don’t know how truthful it is, that Peel made a sharp exit from the States back then because several irate fathers wanted a word with him.

        I’m not too impressed when these people roll out the “it’s legal in [whichever country]” argument to justify what they have done. There are lots of things that are legal/illegal in other countries that would be considered horrendous in this country. The age of consent is 11 in Nigeria, 12 in Angola and the Philippines. So it’s perfectly legal for a middle aged man to go to these countries and have sex with a child. Whereas homosexuality is banned in some countries.

        So whilst, reluctantly, having to conform to certain laws whilst abroad is strongly advised, as it’s better than being slung in jail, taking advantage of local laws that would be horrific back home is not a good look.

        It’s always annoyed me that some people seem to be let off the hook, when it comes to child abuse issues, purely because they are seen as cool. Pete Townshend, after his ridiculous excuse, was put on the child protection register, yet it doesn’t seem to have done his career much harm at all. Contrast him with Woody Allen, who people are queuing up to denounce, even though he was fully investigated in both New York and Connecticut (and then by New York again when he and his wife adopted two girls), who not only dismissed the case without charging him, but concluded that the poor girl was being coached by her vindictive mother. The documented facts and witness statements surrounding this case paint an extremely bleak picture of Mia Farrow.

        Woody Allen marrying the adopted daughter of his then girlfriend is pretty distasteful, as is marrying someone so much younger than himself, but both are not only legal in the States, but perfectly legal over here too. The fact that they remain happily married 30 years later goes some way to removing the initial ickyness. But the false allegation made against him, and that not only has followed him round ever since, but deprived him of being a part of his daughter’s life, deprived his daughter of having her father in her life and, most importantly, have led to life long mental health issues for his daughter, are absolutely disgusting. Actually, there are loads of false assumptions made about his relationship with his wife too – that she was his adopted daughter, that she was underaged when the relationship started, that Allen lived with Farrow, etc. It’s a case that makes me very angry!

        • It’s pretty murky stuff and Woody is no angel, there were reports of him having an affair with a very young woman that is mirrored in the Manhattan film.

          However about the abuse of his own child that he was accused of (not related to Soon-Yi) I read his book and I found his account to be very believable. Haven’t read Mia Farrow’s book but she doesn’t come across as a reliable accuser based on other accounts

          • He’s left quite a bit out of the book too, both about the findings of the investigations, comments from witnesses (namely the maids/nannies) and more of Farrow’s bizarre behaviour.

            For example, when the Golden Globes did a tribute to Woody Allen about 10 years ago, the director of the piece wanted to put a montage from Allen’s films together. He did it, but didn’t know what to do about clips from the films he did with Farrow. Eventually he decided it would be silly to miss these films out, as they are some of his best, so he contacted Farrow to ask her permission. Not only was she happy for him to use clips featuring her, she recommended bits to use and approved the final piece. And then on the night it was aired, she and Ronan set about tweeting their disgust about the Globes honouring Allen like this and caused a big fuss!

            Her life is full of contradiction, not least that she spoke out in court in defence of her brother and Roman Polanski, two convicted child abusers.

            It makes me really angry, and it is people like her that make it more difficult to prosecute actual cases of child abuse, and as I say, her actions have caused no end of damage to her daughter. But only a couple of weeks ago when I mentioned to a mate that Allen’s book mentions quite a lot more that hadn’t previously come to light he said “I dunno, that’s just his side of the story, so I imagine the truth is somewhere in between”. He wouldn’t have it that there is no in between. Farrow accused Allen of a one-off incident of child abuse, so he either did it or he didn’t. There is no grey area.

            Two authorities carried out intensive investigations and concluded it didn’t happen and that it was most likely coaching from Farrow that made her daughter make the accusation (and even then the daughter kept flitting between saying he did and he didn’t). And all the eye witness accounts (Farrow herself wasn’t there and Ronan was only about 4 years old) confirm nothing happened. All the facts (that the loft wasn’t a useable room and that the train set didn’t exist, etc) contradict Farrow’s story, and then then things that have been reported to have been said (“he’s taken my daughter, now I’m going to take his”, “mummy wants me to lie”, etc), as well as the bizarre home video Farrow made with her daughter, support the conclusion that Farrow made it up. But my mate still wouldn’t have it, so I gave up. That’s the problem with this case. Too many people have an opinion without even looking at any of the above. There are even plenty of people who think that Soon-Yi was his daughter and it is her who Farrow accused him of abusing!

  12. I’d wager there’s a whole bunch of “glasto” attendees who’ve never heard of him. How about going back to the original name, the “New Bands Tent”. Why the need to name stages after departed humans?

    • I agree with you on that – don’t name stages after musicians and then we won’t have all of this bother after the event.
      We don’t really know the behaviour of any of them.

  13. They should take his name off the stage.

    The idea that it’s OK, or even appealing, for grown men to be having sex with underage girls has been a feature of the music scene, and particularly the rock scene, for a very long time. Peel’s smirking comments about his own behaviour are a classic example, but I can remember countless examples of reading the music press and wondering why so many journalists seemed so impressed that their heroes got away with abusing kids.

    It’s rank, it needs to end, and it won’t end while one of the world’s biggest music festivals has Peel’s name on a stage. It sends entirely the wrong message. It’s an uncomfortable question for the rock scene, because is really just the tip of the iceberg, but there needs to be a reckoning at some stage.

    Perhaps Peel is unfortunate to have been caught out by changing social mores. I really wouldn’t know – I don’t recall ever living in a period where it wasn’t well understood that 30 year olds shouldn’t be having sex with 15 year olds. They certainly shouldn’t be boasting about it.

    He doesn’t need to be banished entirely from the collective memory; it’s not like he’s history’s greatest monster – people can still enjoy whatever it is they enjoy about him. He just shouldn’t have his name on the stage at a music festival that claims to be progressive and to support women’s rights. That’s what’s known as hypocrisy, and whoever started that petition is right to call it out.

    Personally, I’m up for the “no names on stages” approach suggested above.

    • To be on the safe side, Bing, there should be a “no musicians on stage” policy. We just don’t know what these people are up to in their private lives. It would be terrible to find out in the future that some of them have committed crimes, or weren’t very nice people.

        • Or how’s about – nah then – not having any heroes at all, nonces or not? How about appreciating the art, not the artist?

          We’ve been here so many times before. Time to stop, or shift the paradigm to a Court Of Morals, so we can happily name and shame those who do not come up to our own lofty standards, ignoring the whole business of the arts in general, because all that matters so much less.

          • See above – I’m literally advocating separating art from artist. Unfortunately, naming something “The John Peel Stand” celebrates the latter.

            You and I will have to disagree on the morality piece. I don’t consider it “lofty standards” to ask men in their 30s not to have sex with 13 year olds and boast about it afterwards. Your own mileage may vary.

            I suspect the arts will survive this dreadful assault.

          • I really don’t think that you can call being against child abuse/rape ‘lofty standards’, and I think that wanting a self-confessed perpetrator of these crimes’ name being removed from the stage is perfectly reasonable, particularly as musicians regularly use said stage to highlight good causes of their own. Banning someone because they might have committed crimes that they have never even been accused of is a bit silly isn’t it? Can’t we just stick to known offenders?

            And whilst I get the separating art from the artist argument (I own Phil Spector and Michael Jackson CDs for starters), putting their name above a stage is a step too far. I’m also pretty sure most people would be horrified if Gary Glitter was booked to appear.

    • Darn it, Bingo. You hit the nail on the head there. Why are you always right?

      Time for Glasto to move on from the Jurassic Period. I won’t stop liking Peel. But I will perhaps like him a little less.

      Suddenly, with a certain wry amusement, I remember my first real rock concert. It was Johnny Winter And live at the RAH.

      What was the stand out number?

      Good Morning Little Schoolgirl.

      Times have changed. I suspect you don’t hear that so often there these days.

      Incidentally, Mr Little, you may have heard: there’s a vacancy at Downing Street. With your diplomatic skills, you”d be perfect for the job. The only drawback would be your future colleagues. They make the denizens of this place look like the Teletubbies.

      • Excuuuuuse me, KFD, but Mr. Little’s message here isn’t exactly the first time it’s been voiced. And it won’t be the last time it’s ignored – we’ll get another finger-wagging exercise from the morally pure in short order. Some skeleton from somebody’s closet given a good rattling so we can all agree that [INSERT CRIME HERE] Is a Bad Thing, and we should judge the artist in terms of how he behaved, rather than what he produced.

        For the record – without John Peel, my musical education would have been much harder, shallower, and less enjoyable. That’s as far as I need go. I do not give a container ship-load of fucks what they call the tents at “Glasto,” and I suspect neither would he.

            • Yeah, well I grew up listening to Tim Westwood. By far the most important and influential UK Hip Hop DJ of the 80s and 90s, introduced amazing records to huge numbers of people.

              I think he’s an absolute walloper and I wouldn’t want his name within a country mile of a festival stage.

              His influence and who he is/was – two very different things. Easier to separate in Westwood’s case, because he always came across as an utter danger, but there you go.

        • When I was starting to take a keener interest in music, particularly the music of years gone by, I used to listen to a show on Radio One every Sunday lunchtime. Without it I wouldn’t have heard any sixties girl groups until some time later, or some of the great 50s rock and roll tracks, or a lot of Motown singles and, most importantly, I wouldn’t have had that thunderbolt through my ears when I first heard Like A Rolling Stone. It was a brilliant show and extremely important to my widening musical tastes. But despite all this I most certainly wouldn’t like to see Jimmy Savile’s name on a stage at Glastonbury!

          • He was hardly integral to that show. Basically songs from old charts selected by producers, he just happened to present it. Could have been any DJ

            The view of Peel and his relationship with music is different

            • I don’t believe it! I find myself in total agreement with you, H.P. Except that I think you understate Peel’s importance.

              And you’re right. I don’t think Peel would care too much about having a Glasto Tent with his name or not.

              His programme was a nursery garden for young talent for a very long period. If I started to “unlike” him, I would have to bid farewell to so many vivid memories.

              Eclecticism, enthusiasm and a determination to go his own way.
              There is no other individual who has had such an enormous influence on my musical taste.

              Next time I post a YT clip of a yodelling zither ensemble from Albania playing their tribute to Norman Wisdom, do say a quiet thankyou to Mr Ravenscroft. I’d never have found it without him.

  15. My tuppence. Naming a stage the John Peel stage instantly associates the stage itself with restless, searching musical enquiry, with a seeking out of innovation in one’s musical consumption, and a healthy disregard for conventional cant and the mundane. It’s shorthand for the kind of catholic enthusiasm the man put out over the airwaves for half a century, and announces that this stage is a place to abandon your preconceptions, open your ears and celebrate life through music.

    It’s regrettable that he was a flawed human being, but he was at least a flawed human being who was honest enough to admit the fact. We could all of us, flawed as we all are, learn from that example and stop the hand-wringing revisionism that ignores everything I said in my opening paragraph.

    I don’t imagine Peel would have given a hoot either way, and neither do I, much. But I’m happy to continue to acknowledge his effect upon my generation’s listening habits by using his name as a signifier for the continuing search for musical invention.

    I hope Michael and Emily quietly acknowledge the flaws in the weft of their hero’s character, but stick to their guns and tell the petitioners that they are not minded to bow to their request, specifically because of his enormous influence through feeding generations of us with inspiringly eclectic sounds.

    • It isn’t fulfilling it’s brief then, as a cursory look at the Glasto website, gives us the following:

      “Highlights include Mumford & Sons’ outstanding performance in 2010 before they went galactic; Bruce Springsteen surprising a packed tent to perform alongside Gaslight Anthem in 2009; and in the same year, Florence And the Machine not only stunned a rapturous crowd with their performance, but as Florence ascended the lighting-rig, mouths dropped, hearts beat faster and they knew they were witnessing something special.

      In 2014, George Ezra broke-through with his packed-out set and London Grammar proved their worth to a pogoing throng. While 2013 was the year of Everything Everything and Phoenix, Daughter and Tom Odell. Among the 2015 standouts were Suede, Years And Years, Slaves and Jessie Ware, with memorable 2016 sets from acts including Sigur Ros and Fatboy Slim. While in 2017, the biggest surprise of the entire Festival was a secret, unannounced show from The Killers which nobody present will forget.

      With other historic performances from the likes of The XX, The Black Keys, Wild Beasts, Cribbs, The Kills, Hot Chip, and Calvin Harris, the John Peel Stage has proved legendary.

      Be a part of music history. Get there early.”

      I’m not sure I’m willing to overlook child abuse for the reckless, searching musical enquiry of Mumford & Sons and Tom Odell.

  17. Don’t give a shit if they change the name of the stage, as I won’t be going there anyway.
    He was no saint. It was well-known. Probably just as well he died before his name became mud.
    And not as great a DJ as people like to believe in retrospect. He played a lot of unlistenable tosh in later years and, dare I say it, quite a bit of rather boring music amongst the nuggets of gold. His DJ Mojo was waning.
    But I did like his weekend morning show on Radio 4 in his final years.

    • Your unlistenable tosh was my grinning delight, hanging out of the end of the tent smokin’ a fag with my earbuds in listening to his late night nonsense while on a camping holiday in darkest Dorset. Or out under the stars rough camping on a Dartmoor tor with a bunch of cider heads and a bottomless bag of beef sausages to barbeque. Laughing and spluttering in amazement while slumped on a weathered sofa in a squat in Bristol listening to his utterances and the outrageous sounds he spun. Some of my finest, most memorable listening moments were unlistenable tosh being played by an amused and delighted Peel, late in the evening, and I’ll thank you not to diss them!

  18. This is a a conversation fraught with sensitive boundaries and terminology. I’m reading the words ‘rape’ and ‘sexual assault’ a lot, which I don’t think are appropriate for the context. We have to be careful where we use these terms, as they can easily get diluted (see the watering down of ‘racism’ as an example).

    For those using these terms, would you view Peel’s conduct differently if he had physically restrained any of these girls and had sex with them against their will? What about if he had spent months grooming them and coercing them before having sex with them? What about if the girls were pre-pubescent? I would consider all of these scenarios as orders of magnitude worse than what he did, which is to have sex with post-pubescent underage girls who were willing partners and who initiated the sexual contact. That doesn’t make it right, but it doesn’t make it ‘rape’ or ‘sexual assault’.

    Have we heard from any of these girls?

    btw, as an Australian, Peel means very little to me. He was a name I read about and heard about in music rags, but he had no formative role in my musical development.

    • May be different in Oz or the US, but in the UK anyone alleged to have had sex with an underage (16 years) girl can face a charge of statutory rape.

      The fact that the girl in question was apparently willing will cut no ice with the judge as she is still considered to be a minor by the court and therefore not capable of making such weighty decisions.

      Pretty sure a girl who slept with Peel while still very young came forward years later but did not want to press charges

      • The point of an age of consent is that people below it are deemed incapable of giving consent, and a couple in their mid teens having sex when one is under 16 is relatable in a way that an adult man repeatedly receiving oral sex from girls as young as 13 is not, even if he is sorry-not-sorry about it later.

        • Yes, I understand that. But the fact that this age differs considerably across borders indicates how robust the concept is. We quite happily agree that women of this age can make decisions about their sexuality and gender, but we say that they are incapable of making decisions about consent? Seems a bit patronising.

          Don’t get me wrong, I think an adult man seeking sex with mid-teen girls is sleazy behaviour and I would certainly judge someone I knew negatively for this. But using some of the stronger language such as ‘rape’ for these acts just neuters these terms for when they are really needed.

          • I’m inclined to agree, but would note that, if we consider accuracy of language to be important, the above should really refer to “an adult man seeking sex with children”, given that the appropriate legal terminology is, as chiz rightly points out below, “sexual activity with a child”.

      • @Jaygee you are right about the girl that came forward years later according to articles I read.
        Re the age of consent I find the law actually quite confusing. If a boy and a girl under the age of 16 have sex it would rarely be a prosecutable offence yet if the boy is say 2 or 3 years older it is deemed an offence.
        This is not absolving Peel who was 10 years older but if the marriage was legal (which it was) then the sex is also legal.
        Obviously this doesn’t excuse the previous history that he openly spoke about.

    • It seems you are right at least in UK law, where consensual sexual penetration of a child above 13 but under 16 is defined as ‘Sexual activity with a child’, and not rape. So he’s not a rapist, just someone who bragged about having sex with children.

      • Of course, Twitter is above the law, so it’s been decided it’s a BBC’s conspiracy that they’re not using the ‘R’ word in the Tim Westwood coverage.

          • If you are older than the age of consent (i.e. 16) and have sex with someone under the age of consent, the crime the UK police can/will charge you with is statutory rape.

            Only reason I can see why the BBC might shy away from using this term is if the alleged offender whose story they are covering has yet to be formally charged.

    • There are 100 posts in this thread. I’ve not seen the phrase ‘sexual assault’ used at all, rape is mentioned twice, and abuse a handful of times (this being after all the phrase used by Peel himself).

      It’s a bit of a straw man argument. Of course the scenarios you describe are worse than those committed by Peel, but that doesn’t mean what he did wasn’t wrong, or that he is suitable individual to name a stage after.

      • Apologies, the term was “sexual abuse” which is admittedly a rung or two down the ladder, but still has connotations significantly more negative than what happened here. My post was about the way that people reach for extreme terms, and in doing so disarm those terms.

        As to whether he is a suitable person to have a stage named after, I don’t really have an opinion as I don’t know enough about him to know whether he is a ‘bad’ person. I presume lots of things are named after various Beatles and I assume that their adventures with mid-teen girls in the 60s would have left Peel in the dust.

        On a related note, the town of Ipswich (a satellite city next to Brisbane) has just overturned a previous council decision made a few weeks ago to retain the name of former mayor Paul Pisasale on a number of civil structures. Pisasale is currently in prison after being found guilty in 2020 of multiple offences, including “two counts of sexual assault, official corruption, unlawful drug possession, 27 counts of fraud, secret commission by an agent, and fraud of property” . So, to be clear, the current council voted several weeks ago to keep his name on various civil structures, and only overturned that decision this week after media outcry. Even then, two current councillors abstained from the more recent vote in protest.

        Which shows that people’s opinions on such matters vary considerably.

  19. I’ve just finished reading the entire thread, including the frayed bits, and it looks like every point of view has been reasonably expressed (although conflating Peel’s “crimes” with Savile’s is nonsense) but there’s one thing I’d like to add, and it’s along the lines of “times were different back then” which will have the effect of eliciting “that doesn’t make it right” responses.

    Groupie culture. It probably doesn’t exist now – I wouldn’t know – but in the sixties, seventies and beyond it was a vital part of the rock-ier end of the music business. Getting laid was a major impetus for forming a group and making records. Also in managing a group, or roadying for a group, or being A&R man or whatever (and there was the gay equivalent, more hidden because that was the gay life back then). Nobody had to abduct women/girls, or coerce them. They were waiting backstage, or they were chosen – very happily – from the audience. They wanted to fuck pop stars. This may seem abhorrent today but that’s how it was. This has been documented ad nauseam. It would be very hard to find anyone involved in the business who had not had casual sex with a groupie/fan. Every musician in every band would have either done it or wished he had. Checking age was not a priority, and girls didn’t necessarily wait until they were of legal age before getting on the tour bus. Appalling behaviour? By today’s standards, yes. But to single out any individual for behaving normally (for rock musicians, anyway) for the time is nothing more than tokenism, and, dare I say it, virtue signalling. The Peel business didn’t reqire a petition – with its implication that if you don’t sign you’re pro-child rape. Texting the organisers would have worked just as well, perhaps better.

    I remember him for being the only way I had of hearing the kind of music I wanted to listen to. Pre-internet, pre niche radio, there was no alternative to The Perfumed Garden. He was important, and that’s why they named a tent after him, and not Alan Freeman. Times have changed, and the people wanting his name removed probably never listened to him on pirate radio. I would consider that their loss, but I would say that, wouldn’t I?

    • I’m not commenting on the rights or wrongs but I will share a story. I used to work with a lady who was a teenager in the early 70s. I worked with her in the early 2000’s. A very well respected lady.I woukd say cultured would be a good description. She used to get really upset by the reporting of these cases. Especially around pop / rock stars. I wish I could remember the exact quote but it was along the lines of. “Of course it went on. You can’t blame them, we were all taking our knickers off for them”. I wish I’d had the nerve to get more info from her but I was too busy getting the coffee out of my keyboard…..

      • Yes, but just because you have 14 and 15 yr old girls throwing themselves at you doesn’t mean you should take advantage of it. I would imagine some of these “groupies” will have been very damaged by their experiences even if the sexual acts were considered at the time to be consensual.

        But we should judge everybody by the same criteria, Peel, Page, Bowie, Fabs (allegedly) etc

        • Exactly. Conflating the the actions of 18 / 19 olds with girls of 13 / 14 is simply an artifice designed to excuse men who knew what they were doing was wrong, but also knew they would get away with it. But we’ve reached the predictably reductive point of anyone expressing discomfort at what Peel did as “virtue signaling”, thereby dismissing any possibility of objection having validity. .

  20. It’s probably pointless to even get into this topic, because the attitudes involved are deep rooted and highly unlikely to change. Nonetheless.

    I wasn’t there for the 60s and 70s. But I’ve read most of the rock journalism from that period and I would certainly consider myself fairly well versed in the culture that sprang from it.

    What I’ve observed, over and over again down the years, is a superstructure being built to defend shitty behaviour. Sometimes, one’s own shitty behaviour. Sometimes the shitty behaviour of one’s heroes. Instead of shagging 13 year olds being seen as revolting, it’s mythologised, and the 13 year olds themselves are transformed into predators, regularly behaving in a manner no 13 year olds in history have behaved in any other setting; super-charged by the sheer wanton eroticism of a few power chords, ferociously hunting down older men who look like someone randomly glued animal hair to a sack of potatoes and simply demanding to fellate them.

    You see it over and over again. “I always get it up for the touch of the younger kind”, the cover of Blind Faith, Stray Cat Blues, Sweet Caroline, Peel’s sniggering comments in the OP article, etc. Rock music was bold and transgressive. Its practitioners did not play by the rules, and in that context if one’s conquest was well below the age of consent, all the better. They were vikings, and they behaved as vikings must. This attitude persisted in the culture for decades later – in all but the most extreme cases, I don’t recall ever reading of a rock star sleeping with a child (sorry, not using “mid-teen” – 16 is the middle of the teenage years, and therefore out of scope here) in anything other than terms of awe and envy.

    But mythos is just that: mythos.

    In the case of Peel, I think we have two options. We can either conclude that he was simply such a ladykiller, so fully engrossed in laying them end to end, that he couldn’t possibly be expected to notice if a few desperate kids slipped into the mix. Alternatively, we can assume that someone who married one 15 year old, impregnated another in his 30s, later spoke of a 13 year old who’d fellated him in his 20s as “one of his regular customers” and described a 21 year old as an older woman by his standards, might actually have been relatively open to the idea of sleeping with very young girls. Perhaps he even sought it out.

    Moreover, we can ask ourselves the question as to whether it’s more likely that said very young girls ripped his clothes off and ravaged him, or whether he, a famous man and ugly as sin to boot, with a penchant for young girls, might have gently used his fame and influence to move things in that direction. We will never know, we only have his side of the story, and we have no other examples available of how power and sex interplay.

    It’s interesting to contrast this thread with the current furore around Tim Westwood, another DJ who apparently suffered the same issue with groupies. One 14 year old conquest met him at a show and was invited backstage. She then went to his flat and had sex with him, an act she repeated several times. She never told him no, never protested and kept going back. Because that’s what groupies do, right? Until she later tried to kill herself, citing the entire incident as the primary cause. Because she was 14. He didn’t half discover some great rap music though.

    Girls and boys of this age are still essentially children in emotional terms. They’re not capable of navigating very complex emotional situations like, say, being invited backstage and suddenly encountering their hero with his dick out. Notions of consent become fairly murky in such instances. Likewise, they’re ill equipped to deal with the ramifications of the act itself – their expectations of what will happen next, how it makes them feel about themselves, and so on and so on. Not in all cases, by any means, but in enough, particularly in this case, where Peel is kind enough to boast about his numbers.

    That’s why we have a different concept of “consent” for children, as well as laws to protect them on this front. The oft-cited fact that those laws are different in other countries is no excuse – there are countries out there where all sorts of horrible shit is legal, but thankfully that isn’t the standard.

    Nor is – they were all at it, don’t single him out – an excuse. Not much of one, anyway. Half the Catholic Church were molesting choirboys through much of the 60s/70s (word yet not in on whether those choirboys were hunting down the priests and demanding to perform sex acts on them), but the individuals involved still deserve censure. And that would be the case even if there were a body of journalism around them celebrating their actions.

    Do groupies still exist? Yes, of course. Do musicians still behave badly? Yes, absolutely. What’s changed are two things: an audience that has a much better understanding of how consent does and doesn’t work and who are much more willing (with some exceptions) to question their idols, and a music press far far less slavishly devoted to constructing myth around their subjects, and who are perhaps more distant from the musicians and therefore less likely to be complicit in their bullshit.

    Were a lot of musicians doing this stuff in the 60s and 70s? No doubt. A space was very clearly created for all sorts of terrible behaviour, and I’m certain that a number of people took full advantage. Where there is power there will always be abuse. But those actions didn’t take place in a moral vacuum just because they were reported in a certain fashion. Damage will have been done, because I’m afraid that’s inevitable when you’re having sex with kids in large numbers. A 15 year old having an abortion being once such example.

    On one level, I have to admit that I don’t really care very much what Glastonbury calls its stages. It’s an utter triviality in the grand scheme of things. I don’t really care about Peel either. He’s dead, it’s over.

    That said, I am fairly weary of a lifetime hearing awful behaviour described as simply what men do, or something we would all do, given the opportunity. I cannot say I have ever known any man in real life who has slept with a 15 year old in their 30s. Or who has been sucked off by a 13 year old in their 20s (let alone described such an event in such unabashed terms). I do not recognise the inference that we’d all do it if we could. To be frank, I think it’s fairly vile, and that anyone involved in such behaviour should have a look at themselves.

    I also believe that the implication that girls (or indeed boys) of this age are old enough to take total responsibility for their actions is likely to compound the damage done to some of them when they find themselves patently in over their heads, and has historically been a reason they’ve been unlikely to come forward to talk about what’s happened to them. Hard enough to go up against your former hero and his army of devoted fans (and some of that very devotion is in evidence on this thread), let alone the implication that you are the author of your own misery – the thought one suspects already lurks at the back of the mind of so many of the abused.

    Perhaps that makes me a terrible white knight and virtue signaller. But here’s the thing; I don’t actually care, because it’s what I honestly think, having weighed the issue over time. So I’m going to say it. And will keep saying it every time this argument comes up, until – eventually, as is inevitable, the argument simply fades away, leaving behind only a faint outline of its sheer preposterousness. On the occasions I feel like I’m losing the will, I’ll remind myself that if John Peel – as a grown man – could find the sheer strength and chutzpah to talk to the press about regular oral sexual with a schoolgirls, I too can find it in me to speak my mind on this topic.

    I know that will probably annoy some people, and it’s quite evident that there is a lot of emotion vested in Peel. Fair enough. I actually have some respect for the posts above that are just like “fuck it, he introduced me to the Undertones, I don’t care”. Perfectly valid view, no self deception involved. We all make such compromises all the time. And I mean that sincerely.

    I will close on this. Every time this subject comes up, we’re told how normal all this was in the 60s/70s. A lot of this community were young in the 60s/70s. Is anyone willing to raise a hand to confirm that – yes – they too were fellated by a 13 year old in their 30s? Or that they would like to have been, had the opportunity only presented itself? Perhaps someone will step forward. Perhaps we’ll get a few cautiously oblique “I know a guy who did” responses. Or perhaps it really wasn’t that normal at all.

        • Excellent piece of writing. Times have changed and for the better. I fear the history books may not be so kind about the 60s.

          You are certainly right about the way that the music industry idolised all manner of appalling behaviour and we fans lapped it up. Defenestrating TV sets. Driving care into hotel swimming pools. To me as a bored suburban teenager, all this sounded wonderful.

          And that didn’t end in the 60s. Many musicians and actors since have boasted of their excesses.

          Peel and his contemporaries come out of this all very badly. I’m not taking my copy of his autobiography to the charity shop but I will read it with different eyes now.

          So who comes out of this story well? The only person who I’ve read about here who dared to challenge all these guys bragging about about what studs they were and all the sex they’d had with under-age girls is Julie Burchill.

          That’s four decades during which not one journalist or any other public figure dared to take issue with the kind of comments and attitudes which have been mentioned here.

          I cannot believe that Burchill was the only one to react this way. But no one else dared to speak up? Ok, some of the perpetrators were very powerful individuals with a whole entourage protecting their interests. And an army of loyal fans who would take great umbrage if you criticised our idols. I am one of them. Just look at our reaction on this thread!

          It’s taken forty or so years for this debate to happen and it’s 18 years since Peel died.

          It’s easy to be wise in retrospect but why the relatively long silence?

          I’m not asking for an answer to that one.

    • Nailed it

      I know of 2 teachers at my school who had inappropriate relationships with pupils. In one case the (male) student was not underage, not sure about the other (female) case. In both cases it was fairly well known within the school what was going on.(this was in the late 70s, early 80s)

        • “In loco parentis” – you only have to remember that phrase to remind yourself how creepy (at best) teacher-pupil relationships are.

          And this is before we get into the whole Howard Kirk thing that goes on in universities. Yuk, yuk, yuk.

        • I know that is why I said it was inappropriate

          The male German teacher (who had taught me) later married the female pupil but soon after he was out cycling, and had a brain haemorrhage and died, he was in his early 30s

    • This is exactly what I was going to write…

      Seriously, Bingo, that’s the best, most forensic and articulate piece I’ve read on here, on any subject, for many months if not years. Thank you.

    • I give up.

      I knew that my mention of “virtue signalling” – here referring specifically to the mechanics of the petition – would get pounced upon. I didn’t meant that anyone who expresses an opinion against child rape – which I would hope is all of us, and includes me – is virtue signalling.

      Bingo, as you must have been aware, I was not saying that it was normal for normal 30-year old blokes to be fellated by 13-year old girls. It was “normal” for rock stars at that time to encourage groupies (groupie culture was a thing), and to not turn them away. It was “normal” for groupies to want sex with rock stars. That kind of “normal” is no longer normal, so hooray for us.

      It shouldn’t take a think-piece from Bingo to convince us that child rape is a bad thing. One of the things I dislike about the Afterword is a tendency to express righteous indignation against people in the music business behaving badly/criminally, as if it comes as a great big surprise, and calling (as one commenter here does) for them to “get their just deserts” – like, I suppose, Peel having his name removed from a tent. But let’s not stop there – let’s ban all music by musicians who have expressed a Good Morning Little Schoolgirl mentality, or shagged a groupie. That will be a shitload. No more posts here about Van Morrison, for a start.

      Times have changed, and the music business with it. I would imagine. But if it hasn’t, then isn’t it more productive and effective to deal with today’s problems today, rather than giving some dead DJ’s bones a good kicking?

      • If you want to understand (quite different to sympathise with, or condone) Peel’s behaviour, then an understanding of groupie culture, of which he was very much a part, is helpful. It won’t change your opinion of him (what could?), but setting him in context, while not excusing his actions, will allow a broader view that has to encompass the behaviour of a generation, or at least that part of it that was involved in the music business (not, Bing, the normal man in the street). Do you really think your beloved moptops were immune from the groupie scene? Hamburg? Are you absolutely certain that they didn’t – quite by accident, of course, shag an underage girl or two? Those rascals!
        Part of the problem you may have with understanding – let alone accepting – groupie culture is that the women/girls were not trafficked sex slaves or victims, but actually enjoyed their work. Bragged to each other about it as much as the men. Another part is that I suspect they were not graded by age – this line for the nonces, this line for respecters of legal maturity. That is, whether they were under or over the age of consent was not their U.S.P. It wasn’t the issue it is today, and there’s nothing we can do about that, as much as we consider it our responsibility to point out the sins of the fathers.

        Note I am (again) talking about the wider context of the groupie scene, not specific allegations against Peel or anybody else. Note I am (again) not advocating or turning a blind eye to illegal or immoral or exploitative behaviour. Note too that I am (again) talking about the past. Thank goodness none of this goes on any more, and this generation has learned from the mistakes of the last.

      • Will try to be brief here, to offset the wordfest above.

        * Don’t want to get into a personal ding dong about this. Recognise that Peel means a lot to people and there’s a sensitivity to criticism of him. Fair enough. Also recognise that views are hardly likely to change, it’s nearly the weekend and the sun is out.

        * All people are light and shade. Quite possible that in every other aspect of his life John Peel was an absolute ray of sunshine who contributed endlessly to the gaiety of nations. I’m certainly not suggesting he needs to be airbrushed from history or that every time his name is mentioned we should all spit on the floor and curse him.

        * I think some of the (probably inadvertent) obfuscation here is a self deception. Notably, the conflation of broader groupie culture (which we all understand and which precisely no one on this thread has condemned), and sex with kids. Obviously, there’s a point where one meets the other. At that point I think everyone (per my post above) needs to form their own conclusion as to whether John Peel – based on his own words which, let’s face it, are likely to be the most charitable reading of his own behaviour – inadvertently had sexual contact with underage girls despite having no wish to do so/knowledge of their age and maybe experienced a modicum of regret, or was alternatively quite pleased at having done so. The latter strikes me as fairly distinct from two consenting adults having sex, hence the issue.

        * I genuinely lament the fact that it’s difficult to have this conversation without it sounding like I’m accusing you personally of being some sort of paedophile. That’s not my intent, and I recognise it’s difficult for you to express your POV on this subject in good faith without having to worry that you’re going to be tagged as an apologist for child rape.

        * You ask whether it isn’t more productive and effective to deal with today’s problems today, rather than giving some dead DJ’s bones a good kicking. Peel’s name is on the stage today. No one is advocating digging him up and urinating on the bones, they’re simply asking that his name be taken off a tent in the here and now, because of the message it sends, and because some of his words/behaviour would appear to be at odds with what is – today – the ethos of the festival. Which makes this a “today” problem.

        * I think the fear implicit in a lot of this thread, and which you touch on yourself, is that if we accept Peel was out of order it starts us on a path where no one can write about Van Morrison/listen to the Beatles. That half the stuff you love will end up cancelled. I just don’t see it. There can’t be a person on here who doesn’t think Van Morrison is a total prick, but loads of us still love his music. We can look at a musician, recognise their flaws/that they got some stuff wrong, and still love their art, or even love them. I wrote a long post last year about what Kurt Cobain means to me. He was a junkie who dropped a baby on its head. I can own that, it’s not the end of my enjoyment of his music.

        As said above, I believe there’s a middle way here where we can all recognise that John Peel’s quotes in the article are clearly rank (and would be, regardless of who they came from), while not going overboard and denouncing him on all fronts for all eternity. I’m fine with that. I’m not really fine with a “well, you had to be there” response to the quotes though. Hence all this waffle.

        • It’s not waffle, Bing, it’s considered and eloquent prose, as you know. What I found noteworthy in your earlier screed was, ahem:

          – Straw man argument: nowhere was anyone saying (in your startling phrase) it was “normal for thirty year-old men to be fellated by thirteen year-old girls.” If you were referring to my use of the word “normal” you’ll find it was specifically related to what was normal behaviour within groupie culture (a very narrow subsection of society, and abnormal in that wider sense).

          – Asking for people to raise their hands if they’d broken the law (guilty of child rape). Always a good ploy in a political speech; forms solidarity and general agreement.

          I didn’t think you were accusing me of being a pedophile (it’s not me who enjoys going to concerts crammed with excited teenage girls – that’s not my “normal”, although your mileage may differ), just that you seemed to be implying that anyone thinking the whole Tentgate thing is a bit eye-roll is by definition advocating child rape or denying people the freedom to voice an opinion against it. I assume everyone is against raping children, and I don’t see the need to get up on my hind legs and argue against it, as if it was some kind of personal platform.

          Unfortunately we cannot go back in time to teach people the error of their ways. But we can console ourselves with the confidence that we would never, ever, behave as they did under the same circumstances. Also, Tentgate will be an effective deterrent for other dead guys with ideas of evildoing.

          From The Doors to Dawes; times have changed.

          • Let’s continue bullet pointing:

            * On “child rape” – mentioned 8 times on this thread. 7 of them by you, once by me (to agree with you that you’re not defending it). I’m afraid I cannot do any more than explicitly say “I’m not making this argument”. You’re free to continue seeing it out there in the trees though.

            * “But we can console ourselves with the confidence that we would never, ever, behave as they did under the same circumstances.” I honestly don’t think of it as a statement of lofty moral virtue to say that one wouldn’t behave as Peel did, even given the opportunity. Something about mileage here.

            * The discussion isn’t about child rape. It’s about sexual contact between a famous adult and children. One would indeed assume that everyone would be against such things, and that there would be no need to explain to grown adults why they’re wrong and should not be defended, and yet – here we are (see second bullet point).

            With that, I’m signing off as I’m boring myself, let alone others, and because I rather feel that continued “debate” around this topic is in danger of dignifying it.

            • Oh, that’s what it’s about? I thought it was about removing a dead DJ’s name from a tent. Which, thanks largely to your widely-praised post, became something much broader. I have never spent so much time basically agreeing with someone (mostly) while appearing to be in opposition, but you shouldn’t be any more worried about dignifying the debate (no patronising finger-waggles required) by your participation than boring people. This whole thread has been worthwhile, and if I haven’t fallen into the general swoon of appreciation for your input it’s because I think you’d make a terrific politician.

  22. Interesting that these discussions almost always take place without a female opinion.

    »The men don’t know but the little girls understand…« probably.

    And, by the way, there’s the story of a 14-year old Robert Plant who met Sister Rosetta Tharpe backstage in Birmingham. She told him, »Boy, you’re too pretty to stay here. You can come with me and be my slave…« His reply: »But I’ve got to go home and do my homework!!«

    • That’s a wonderful story, Fatima.

      You are darned right. This discussion has really lacked female voices.

      But the AW is a very blokey site. And Peel attracted very blokey fans. There must have been a few women who were music nerds who tuned into his shows but my mental picture of a Peel fan is a nerdy, anoraky, listomaniac bloke. Completely unlike me!

      That’s not the complete picture. One of my favourite discoveries of the past 20 years was Laura Cantrell, the NY/Texan singer and DJ who he championed. The respect was mutual.

      Rather inappropriate perhaps, but I’m going to post this track that she recorded live at Peel Acres with Ballboy. Just to remind me why I was a fan for all those years.

  23. We’ve all made out mind up by now about where we stand on this issue.

    However I made an attempt to discover whether Burchill was the only critical voice before the recent allegations. I didn’t so very well.

    But I did find an in-depth Peel interview from 2000 by Sean Hogan. He is clearly a fan and not there to be critical about his interviewee.

    https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/jul/23/features.magazine47

    Peel comments on Burchill’s article.

    ‘A lot of the things Julie Burchill writes I kind of agree with,’ he says gloomily. ‘But then she goes off on one, and it kind of undervalues all the other stuff she’s written. I hate being misrepresented.’

    If you are curious about Peel you’ll find this article a worthwhile read. And if you aren’t, you won’t bother with it.

    The parts where he talks about his family background are very revealing.

    “Brought up by nannies, he didn’t meet his father until he was six. He was sent away at seven to boarding school and later to Shrewsbury public school. There wasn’t much quality time involved. There wasn’t much love. So he was attracted by affection wherever he found it. ‘I suppose I was aspirant working class in a way. The kind of working class I knew seemed to be warmer, more considerate. My parents and their friends were part of a culture and society in which being rather brittle and amusing and destructive was seen as all there was. The clever put-down was very much a part of it. My dad would always introduce me like [assumes Captain Mainwaring voice], “Ah, this is John – John’s the family idiot”.

    A very complex and very flawed man. Time for biopic?

    Nicholas Cage would be perfect for the main role.

    • “We’ve all made out mind up by now about where we stand on this issue.”

      Me, I’m against child rape. Hands up who isn’t! Come on, now – you sir, at the back? I noticed you narrowing your eyes speculatively when Bingo conjured up the image of thirteen year-old girls fellating thirty year-old men …

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