Jimmy Savile

[FridayFrida]

Thought I’d chip here- had relatives that lived near him in Roundhay which is very wealthy, predominantly Jewish, and quite conservative area of Leeds. The restaurant featured in the second LT doc was a family fave for celebrations- and he was a regular face in there. Never met him- but know he once approached a family friend and her elderly mother whilst they were out for afternoon tea (proper twinset and pearls type folk) did the whole smarmy celeb shaking hands thing but then whispered something incredibly crude and obscene to them. They were absolutely horrified and stunned into silence. Also heard years ago that The Smith’s song Panic / Hang The DJ was about him- not sure in the truth but the lyrics are haunting when you apply to him...

 

[ipiraka]

Prince Charles had him as his wedding advisor, if that's not enough to convince you the Royal Family are bent I don't know what fucking is

 

[Raininvain]

I had a similar experience in my youth. We had a very butch female PE teacher who used to do the same.
Even worse we had a male science teacher who would get all the girls with big boobs to sit at the front of the class where he could ogle them better!

We had this as well and there were two women P.E teachers one gay, one straight and they both stared at you. We had to take all our clothes off for the shower then line up with nothing on and hand our towels over to the teacher. Then everyone had to walk round this communal horseshoe shower and then line up to get your towels back. They made comments like you look nice after having a shower etc. It was absolutely dreadful going through puberty and teenage years having to put up with this humiliation. I'm not surprised there was so much truanting from P.E and games.

 

[Ellis hav]

There is an interview on YouTube about a man speaking about as a young boy he was sent to a boys home and the men in charge were sexually abusing the boys almost torturing them. He said groups of men would come into the homes to rape and torture them and they’d be driven to a woods told to run and then the men would hunt them down and rape them for sport. He said a boy died from shock and the other boys were made to bury him. He said one of the men he recognised as Jimmy Saville.

 

[Lizzie Mintdrop]

My dad wouldn't let us watch JS on the telly because he knew a woman that had been raped by JS when she was 15. My older, half sister met him when she was 9, he was handing out sweets near a children's home and my sister was holding her hand out, he took hold of her hand and held onto it for ages, she said she felt really uncomfortable but didn't know why and didn't want the sweets anymore when he let go. What a horrible man. I think it's really obvious that he was a known paedophile but it was kept quiet. So many people have blood on their hands for covering for him

 

[Raininvain]

The next one like this will be Cliff Richard, another untouchable.

 

[RedMagnolia]

Agree that growing up in the 80s, there was a feeling that Savile was an oddball but harmless - and a lot was put on his ‘good work’ for charities.
The documentary footage is certainly eye opening on how many comments made on screen were actually horribly creepy yet accepted and laughed off.
I’ve only watched the first episode so far; I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to stomach.

I posted this in another thread, but I met him in the 80s when I was a student nurse at Stoke Mandeville. He was treated as a hero because he'd raised 10 million quid for the spinal injuries unit. We were warned to ensure we locked the door to the nurses quarters at night because Jimmy was a bit of a perv and had a master key. It was said in a kind of 'what is he like? hahaha' kind of way. He gave off a strange vibe and I don't think he was actually interested in any of us, because we didn't meet his criteria for being emotionally immature, vulnerable and star struck. He french kissed our hands though, when we met him I wish I'd slapped his face.

 

[Scotch Mist]

This is no excuse at all but it was all so different then. I remember the term 'kiddie fiddler' being bandied about when I was growing up and people just seemed to accept that some men were creepy and kept away from them but not enough to warrant any police involvement. It's awful.

Thinking about it, I thought most of those TV presenters were weird old men in some, way shape or form - Forsyth, Savile, that guy from 'It's a knock out'.....

The whole concept of consent was very blurred too. I've said this before but I remember watching an old Carry on film where part of the 'plot' featured a young, posh woman deciding to travel on her own by train (think it was 'up the khybe'r). She was warned it wasn't safe as men would 'have their way with her' but she went anyway. There followed a scene where a succession of men went into the train carriage and pulled the blinds down. So we were supposed to think she was either just accepting of it all or was being raped and it was all a 'laugh'. Times have changed a great deal and all the better for it. I still can't see how he could get away with it all though. The sheer scale was horrific.

Oh god yes, it was assumed that the young woman in question would be delighted with all the male attention it was quite sickening.

The point I was trying to make was that it's easy to look back and say why didn't any women do anything without realising what they were up against at the time. Sexism was everywhere.

When I was a child I used to watch 'Miss World' on the TV. Never at any time did I think it was dreadful that the girls were just being judged on their looks and that sashaying down a catwalk draped in a mink coat was wrong. It never occurred to me! Now you can say that I was a dumbass not to have grasped that but the vast majority just accepted that as the norm.

In sitcoms at the time there were only 2 types of women - the sexy young girl that all the men lusted after or the middle aged battleaxe (all other women over 35). Stereotypes were everywhere.
Young attractive women were just there for men to paw and older women weren't taken seriously and ridiculed.

 

[Libbylulu]

As a young child I thought Jim’s Fix It was magic, I even wrote in. But the older I got the creepier and weird JS seemed. I was absolutely shocked when the story broke at how much he was allowed to get away with without anyone doing anything. From hospitals, care homes, Broadmoor, BBC... it’s astonishing.

 

[Phoenix Lazarus]

I remember a teacher giving a few of us a bollocking at primary school for saying he was creepy citing all the charity work he did and telling us he was a very nice man

I hope they're alive now. Imagine how thoroughly silly they would feel if they are!

 

[LoopyLou47]

Devout catholics dont rape and hurt children

Shame the Vatican didn't think so and spent decades protecting their priests rather than throwing them out and reporting them to the authorities. Agree that they shouldn't, but sadly do, and still think they are devout.

 

[Noseyparker68]

My friend was in the spinal unit at Stoke Mandavil and the nurse s said, don't let him take you for a trip in his rolls and don't be alone with him he's into little girls this was 1981

 

[Phoenix Lazarus]

As an owner of Dan Davies' biography of Savile, In Plain Sight, I thought the anecdote he relates in the pages shown below gives an interesting flavour of Savile and those who enabled him.

 

[RedMagnolia]

His liking for sloppily kissing or even licking the back of women's hands and arms is something I've often seen referred to.

Yes, when I complained, I was told 'aww but that's what he's like, bless him' as if it was an endearing trait. I remember washing and washing and washing my hands with Hibiscrub to get rid of the stink of tobacco-ridden saliva. Well, when I say I, all 11 of us in my cohort felt the same way. It was gross and disgusting BUT he was Jimmy Savile (and it was early 80's when men could behave badly with women and when they complained, were told off for not being flattered or for lacking a sense of humour)

 

[Eirawen]

I remember watching the very affable Michael Palin on Parkinson way back in the 70's. Jimmy Saville was Parky's second guest and Michael Palin was really rude and offhand with him. He made it very plain that he detested him,so out of character for the usually good natured Palin. I found Saville repulsive but was surprised by Michael Palin's very upfront attitude, now of course I realise he must have known what an abomination Saville was and was not going to hide his distaste and loathing ofJ S which is what everyone else did, Parky was right up Saville's arse.

 

[Scotch Mist]

This was because this greasy bastard threatened to sue, like he did with The Sun, except The Sun had photographic evidence that he had visited the children's home and he backed off. It would not surprise me if he had blackmail material on people to cover his ass. At the end of it all, if they did't have concrete evidence of it happening, anyone who didn't fear this creepy asshole willing to come forward, the cops couldn't do anything.

JS, like a media outlet once said, he groomed a nation. Take the charity work for instance;that was a complete smokescreen that served a dual purpose. JS's ego is boosted, he gains brownie points in the eyes of the public, he is doing good and then he gains access to influencial people and potential victims.


No he wasn't, but back then in the 70s and 80s, I remember Britain being this quaint and cloistered place. The newspaper could make or break people. Three tv channels and BBC ruled the joint. Radio 1 was THE pop station and by extension their DJs were stars in their own right seen on TOTP. Old creepster had his family friendly show going great guns. I knew it was country with a larger population than my own, but it always felt like it operated like a small town.

Yes you make an excellent point here. People who are too young to remember the 70s and 80s can't really grasp that the establishment had total control over people. There was limited media coverage compared to today and those at the top seemed very remote to the general population. There was little you could do to challenge the status quo.

Sure you could voice your opinions to your mates down the pub but actually having a platform to challenge the establishment in any effective way was very difficult in those days and completely different to now.

Also women were often not believed if they reported rape or assault. In the 1980s I had a boss who regularly tried to grope me. When I complained to the HR department about how he treated me I was told in no uncertain terms that he was very important as a Director of the company and I was not. It was suggested that I should leave if I didn't like it!

 

[Anasnake]

I write to him as a kid, I wanted to meet Wham. I remember there used to be some charity thing where taxi drivers took disabled kids from Manchester to Blackpool. It was a big procession, I lived on the route and we went to watch. Saville was at the front, stood up in a big open top car waving to everyone. Makes me shudder now

The hospital ‘Jimmy’s’ wasn’t named after him, it’s called St James’

 

[Gym&Tonic]

I wonder what she was like- presumably we only have JS’s account of her to go on.

The whole family was fucked up and incest was the norm. At least one of his brothers was also a pedalo.

 

[Calabria]

On YouTube there is the episode of Crimes That Shook Britain about him. His nephew was taken by a grooming gang and Savile turned up at the house with more kids in tow. The nephew thought “Uncle Jimmy” was there to rescue him. Now he realises that he wasn’t.

 

[Lucyxxxx]

What is Cliff accused of?

Here KITTY KITTY