The 7th child in a struggling Leeds family, teenage Jimmy Savile (1926-2011) worked in coalmines in WW2 when he suffered serious injuries in an explosion. So he moved instead to work as a dance hall manager and disc jockey. Later he became a DJ at Radio Luxembourg and then at BBC Radio 1. His work included regular tv appearances in Top of the Pops (1964->) and the children’s show Jim’ll Fix It (1975–>). It was on Top of the Pops that Savile displayed his eccentric peroxided hair, ugly tracksuits, bling jewellery, cigars, cartoonish mannerisms, unintelligible yodelling, Yorkshire accent and huge cigars. Here Jimmy arranged ways to fulfil the dreams of regular people, mostly children, clearly exhibiting his love for people.
Daily Mail
I am reluctant to write this post. In the early 80s I read a file about an Australian tv star who sexually abused young teen girls. I was warned never to mention it again or I would lose my job. The memories still make me anxious.
The earliest abuse recorded by police was in Manchester in 1955, where Savile was managing a dance hall. And a few years later, police reported that a 10-year-old boy asked Savile for his autograph outside a hotel. Savile took the boy inside and sexually assaulted him.
Then abuse reports started at the BBC, Leeds General Infirmary and Stoke Mandeville Hospital where Savile was a volunteer hospital porter in 1965. [Decades later, the Health Department published the results of investigations by 28 medical establishments!]. 1970 police records showed Savile was abusing girls at Duncroft Girls' School Surrey where he was a regular visitor. Note that Savile chose facilities where children could not be easily supervised by their parents.
In Louis Theroux’s 2000 documentary, Savile acknowledged but laughed at the rumours about him being a paedophile. A lifelong bachelor, Savile lived with his mother The Duchess and kept her wardrobe perfectly. He fondled through her clothes and undies for Theroux’s camera.
Savile was well-connected in the entertainment industry and hung out with the famous. He often met members of the Royal family eg at the 1984 Royal Variety Performance. At the Victoria Palace Theatre, the Prince and Princess of Wales and Queen Mother laughed at his jokes and shook his hand. When Savile was knighted in 1990, it followed a decade of networking at the British Establishment, especially with Margaret Thatcher.
Savile, the Establishment hero with the PM Mrs Thatcher, 1978
Tribune
Tribune
The close relationship between Prince Charles and Jimmy Savile.
The prince said the tv star was his unofficial chief advisor
There were court cases by Jimmy Savile against a newspaper that linked him to abuse at Jersey children's home and Savile was interviewed under caution by Surrey police investigating an indecent assault case at Duncroft school. But there was insufficient evidence to charge him.
Savile began legal proceedings against a news service that linked him in 2008 to abuse at Jersey’s Children's Home. And he was interviewed by Surrey police in 2009 investigating the old alleged indecent assault at Duncroft school. The school confirmed the abuse report from the 1970s and referred Savile to Children’s Protection Society/CPS. Newsnight editor Peter Rippon instructed reporter Meirion Jones to stop working on the story, to save the BBC
Jimmy Savile died in Oct 2011. A tender tribute programme was aired on BBC1 called Jimmy Savile: As It Happened. Savile really had been a great fundraiser! In fact he raised a staggering £40m for charity So I assume the recipient charities and facitilities didn't want to lose their cash supplies? And survivors were frightened to speak, assuming they wouldn’t be believed or would be punished. But what happened after Savile died. See the next blog post on this top 30/3/2024
22 comments:
I can't bear to watch this on Netflix, so much is now known about Savile in this country. My mother always hated him and none of us could watch the Top of the Pops shows when he was the compere, we disliked him. He used to do a programme "Jim 'll Fix It". He was always creepy with the children and once again mum told us to beware of him. He pulled the wool over so many peoples eyes and got away with it. My mother was always a bit obtuse but she was often right about people.
Pre-teens could see he was weird. BBC audience reports testified the same. But he turned up as presenter (in suit & tie) for the BBC's 1979 end-of-decade review program - stilted, uncomfortable, evidently unqualified as presenter. Who in the BBC facilitated that? No answer so far. Thereafter neverending vox-pop a-town-a-week travelogue on radio, "Jim'll Fix It" (just as stilted/weird) etc. Why did (do) the BBC harbour someone self-evidently untrustworthy?
Who was the Australian TV star? What happened to him?
In answer to your last question, one would hope not. But...
It is extraordinary how protected he was by large institutions, especially the BBC, but it seems not one person was guilty of protecting him and I can understand why. It was institutional protection and I think the buck stops with the head of such institutions, especially the BBC. And after umpteen investigations, what were the police doing?
Rachel
your mother was very insightful, decades ago when parents clearly were not telling their early teen daughters to keep Savile's hands off their knickers. My parents told me VERY clearly which middle aged men were sleazy.
Did Savile really pull the wool over the eyes of otherwise perfectly intelligent adults? I can believe one or two organisational leaders might have been fooled, but even in the 1960s and 70s, I think those adults CHOSE to not investigate.
Ian
How very disappointing that it was the BBC, of all places, that covered for Savile and forbade proper investigation. Most parents thought that only the BBC (or the ABC here) were trustworthy, that the BBC checked and doublechecked every fact before airing the news or analyses. Commercial tv, radio and newspapers were less trustworthy because they made decisions based on profit. Goes to show that no media organisation was beyond close investigation :(
LMK
if the Australian tv star had ever been properly investigated, I would have happily discussed the case here. But he wasn't, and his career went on very nicely.
Only in 2021 did one young teenager in that programme said she was sexually harassed in the 1980s, but I assume she didn't mention any particular man's name in order to protect her own career.
Andrew
A senior army officer is suing Australia's three most trusted newspapers for defamation over reports that portrayed him as committing unthinkable war crimes. There were many witnesses, but they are reluctant to reveal their names, faces or evidence in case the accused destroys the rest of their lives back in Australia.
How much more afraid would children/young teens have been :(
He became very powerful and intimidated people in high places and all in the name of some of the best known charities in England he became untouchable. He was conniving and evil and very successful at doing it. He made it into an art.
Rachel
I totally agree re the charity part. If I ran an organisation that was desperate for funding and a very decent man volunteers to raise millions of pounds for my hospital, children's home or private school, I might avert my eyes as well.
But there was a limit. When it became well known that he was conniving and evil, I would have asked him to volunteer elsewhere, then I would have provided a support system for the children damaged inside my organisation. It could still be done now, for damaged 70 year olds.
Mind you, I say this in full understanding of what happens to whistle blowers who defy their boss's orders :(
Netflix has a new True-crime documentary called Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story. The new Netflix documentary launched on Wednesday, April 6, 2022. The documentary has multiple episodes describing the disgrace of UK TV and radio personality Jimmy Savile.
The docuseries uses archive footage that will lead the viewers on how Savile fooled everyone for so long. It examines, through extensive archive footage, Savile's relationship with the British people, the establishment and the media.
Sadly Savile was never brought to justice. He was protected by his celebrity status and other high status peodophiles within his circle of friends including high ranking police officers and a member of parliament. At about the same time another employee of the BBC, Stuart Hall was also abusing children as was Rolf Harris. Both of whom were convicted.
That Netflix programme is really chilling. The BBC seems to have been culpable but so were many other institutions.
The 'Australian star' that LMK refers to was staying at the same hotel as us over one Christmas period in Bournemouth on the south coast. He was appearing in a show in a local theatre. At dinner on Christmas Day he was with his family and about six children from our party kept going over to his table to speak to him. He got up and spent a full hour entertaining the kids (right in front of us!). I walked over to his table and apologised to his wife but she just sighed and said, "Don't worry, we're used to it".
CLICK HERE for Bazza’s blatantly bipedal Blog ‘To Discover Ice’
Hello Hels, I don't know what Savile was like as a performer, but those photos of him creeped me out even before I read your revelations about him. I see that his fame and contacts/sponsors protected him to a degree, but how could not at least some of the victims have been believed, and given him a very bad reputation during his life, even if he was never prosecuted?
--Jim
Netflix
thank you. I saw the 2000 film and I hope that victims, their parents and the professionals are more insightful now.
Fun60
I knew all about Harris, of course. But not about Hall.
Studio workers talked about a specific cases when Hall brought young teen girls into his dressing room, introduced them as his nieces then locked the door. BBC Manchester must have been very proud of their presenter in the late 1960s, 70s and 80s, because every single BBC worker knew what was happening and kept their mouths shut. It must have worked because, in the 2012 New Year Honours list, he got an OBE for services to broadcasting and charity. Despite being charged with crimes that occurred between 1967-86, Hall was not convicted of sexual abuse against children until 2014!! https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-35660167
That sexual abuse happens doesn't surprise me in the slightest. That sexual abusers are still being protected by authority figures horrifies me.
bazza
there must be something very appealing and lovable about artists and performers who groom children and young teens. The middle aged men feel they are contributing to world happiness and the young teens feel that someone is taking notice of them. The experience in Bournemouth was very different, for example, from a quick anonymous breast grab in a crowded tv studio.
I worked as a psychologist for 20 years, until 1990, and NOW I believe we still don't understand the slow, grooming process.
Parnassus
even if some of the victims might have been believed at the time the abuse occurred, it seems that a proper process would never have been launched. Children were too afraid to tell anyone, parents would have thought they were protecting their children best by staying silent, and the senior staff in the BBC, hospitals and children's homes would never have taken the word of an infantile 14 year old over a national tv star.
It was almost inevitable that the police and courts would not become involved, and that counsellors would not be brought in to support the young victims.
Boa tarde minha querida amiga Hels. Confesso que não conheço muitos artistas de fora do Brasil. Obrigado pela dica e matéria.
Luiz
I am certain that famous tv, film and sports stars were untouchable in most countries. I am just mortified that I was in protective services for a long time and knew nothing of Savile and his goals.
Thats if the abused remembers the events fully. I remember a kind of day care center where I and 1 other boy were. I was about 3 years old but parts of the memory are very vivid. A lady with straight long dark hair and a man with white hair a bed and her holding me on my side while the man abused me. Was somewhere close to Stoke Mandeville hospital, around 1969. I could describe the entrance to the building and tell you how the woman told my mother that I had done nothing but cry all day. I was punished for that on top of what had happened. I'm not saying it was him but it has a lot of coincidence about it. I got the full story replayed to me by a regressive flashback during treatment for complex ptsd... I can't describe how difficult it is to accept but I also do not remember the beatings my father and mother would give me either but I know they happened... I would suggest there are many more victims like myself who's mind managed to block to protect but ended up struggling very much with life... Savile is just the public image of a sickness that destroys lives for depraved self satisfaction... If anyone has knowledge as to who the dark haired woman was she should be public shamed... I lived in Wingrave at the time and my kife stopped that day..
Anonymous
When Savile launched the BBC’s Top of the Pops in 1964, I thought he was sleazy but I had never heard back then that children were endangered. Only decades later did the heartbreaking evidence like your own become available to Children's Protection Services and the police, and even then it wasn't always believed by the authorities.
Do you have trusted and effective physical and mental health support today?
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