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Original poster

To think that Saville was NEVER a "Much loved family favourite"???

684 replies

MrsWinnibago · 26/06/2014 13:33

Sorry to start a thread about this sick, awful animal but they just said on Radio 4 that he was a much loved family favourite.

I CLEARLY remember watching him on Jim'l Fix It and thinking "Oh he's HORRIBLE!"

I hated him...he was frightening and I could see that some children were very scared of him on that show.

Did ANYONE actually enjoy his "performances" and appearances?? I don't think so.

I think the establishment kept him where he was...on TV and in positions of power because he knew too much about THEIR activities.

And it's funny how it all came out once he was dead and couldn't name anyone else.

I challenge anyone to think back and remember how much they "loved" him at the time before his activities were known.

OP posts:
tethersend · 26/06/2014 14:22

God, if revelations came out about Tony Hart, I'd be devastated.

I was shocked enough to find out that he had a wife.

ScrambledSmegs · 26/06/2014 14:22

Loved the show. Never liked him though. Couldn't have put my finger on why at the time though, just didn't like him. Was rather unsurprised when the rumours about him came to my attention in the 90s, so I guess on some level I had my suspicions.

Who on earth was Christopher Lillicrap?

thecageisfull · 26/06/2014 14:24

I liked Jim'll fix it but like other posters I found him embarrassing. I remember wanting to write in and not doing it because of the squirmy bit where you got your badge. I met him once and he was awful, but not in a creepy way, just OTT and embarrassing and 'everyone look at meeeee!' but I put it down to my own introversion rather than to some sort of pervert radar.

netty7070 · 26/06/2014 14:25

He really creeped me out as a child. It made me uneasy looking at him. That's why I never watched JFI.

RiverTam · 26/06/2014 14:26

well, the viewing figures suggest that he was, I think Jim'll Fix It peaked at over 15 millions viewers, and he/the show got 20,000 letters a week. I loved Jim'll Fix It. Didn't like him as a DJ or on TOTP though, he seemed too ageing rocker for those.

BeCool · 26/06/2014 14:27

I've always live Brucie and Rolf.

limitedperiodonly · 26/06/2014 14:28

becool You arrived in Britain almost 20 years after Savile was a much-loved family favourite.

At that time there were sniggerings Hmm of necrophilia and his appearance had changed from this to this.

I don't like to judge a book by its cover but I'd suggest that your judgement in 1994 was a little easier than and most other people's in 1974.

Now I've already confessed to being unsophisticated, and I'm not psychic either, but if someone is presented by the Establishment as an upstanding person, how are people who don't know him supposed to know?

More importantly why are the OP and others on this thread implying, possibly inadvertently, that Savile's victims should be blamed for not feeling something funny in their waters?

MaryWestmacott · 26/06/2014 14:30

I was born inthe 70s, I remember thinking he was creepy. also it always seemed wrong that he was on Jim'll fix it - as if the show didn't need him, he just sat there looking miserable and really out of place on Childrens TV with his chest hair out and odd hairstyle and big gold chains, at the time the rest of the Children's TV presenters were all bouncy people wearing colourful jumpers over shirts, with big smiles and terribly, terribly safe looking. He stood out.

However, Rolf Harris I was shocked about.

I think JS was very very clever at getting powerful people to be seen with him and linked with him, after that, accusations against him would be accusations against them.

ZanyMobster · 26/06/2014 14:30

We loved Jim'll fix it as kids and I really can't remember thinking anything one way or another about him, I wrote in several times so can't have been particularly disturbed by him.

I often wonder what my nan would have made of it all, she was usually a good judge of character.

At first my dad was a bit like 'the women are coming forward now for money, why didn't they say anything before' but obviously as it all came out he realised there was more to it of course. I don't think we can really compare JS to the Role Harris accusations at this time, they are not really similar (well as far as what we know from what has been reported).

Looking back JS seems incredibly creepy but I wouldn't say I think the same of RH, doesn't mean it isn't true of course as sometimes you just never know.

CFSKate · 26/06/2014 14:31

twitter.com/murunbuch

YouTheCat · 26/06/2014 14:31

How am I, or any of the others saying they had a gut instinct about him, saying his victims are to blame?

Saville is to blame, and those who protected him over the years.

ComposHat · 26/06/2014 14:32

I lived in Leeds in the mid 2000s and the rumours about him sexually interfering with corpses in hospitals were well known locally. I think there's an Irivine Welsh novella with a celebrity who fundraises for a hospital in exchange for access to the morgue. It was clearly based on Jimmy Saville.

But like a lot of people the creepiness of the man didn't register til the Louis Thereoux documentary.

SaucyJack · 26/06/2014 14:32

More importantly why are the OP and others on this thread implying, possibly inadvertently, that Savile's victims should be blamed for not feeling something funny in their waters?

I don't know what process of logic you've use to get to this. I'm quite sure the children he abused didn't submit willingly, and knew better than anyone he was a creepy perv.

flipchart · 26/06/2014 14:33

I can't remember what I thought of JS when I was a kid but I remember my nan wouldn't let us watching him. She used to say there was something not right about that man. We never knew what she meant. Maybe she didn't but was just following her instincts not to like him.

ZanyMobster · 26/06/2014 14:34

Just seen on MSN that some of RH charges were younger girls, I didn't realise that as had just seen the stuff about his daughters friend.

Original poster
MrsWinnibago · 26/06/2014 14:35

Saucy who said that!?? I never once implied that! I am saying that I wonder how on earth he got to be a family favourite as I can only judge from my OWN feellings around him. I needed to hear other's opinions...to hear that they in fact saw no evil in him and like his shows.

OP posts:
MexicanSpringtime · 26/06/2014 14:35

I always thought he was awful. Didn't occur to me that he was a threat to anyone, just didn't like his OTT phoniness. I think most children get creeped out by so much falseness.

Probably this inate revulsion was overridden by the attitude of parents in some cases.

ScrambledSmegs · 26/06/2014 14:36

Ah, was Christopher Lillicrap on ITV? I wasn't allowed to watch ITV Sad

tethersend · 26/06/2014 14:36

"More importantly why are the OP and others on this thread implying, possibly inadvertently, that Savile's victims should be blamed for not feeling something funny in their waters?"

To extrapolate that from many of us saying we found him creepy as children is absurd.

It is never, ever the victim's fault. Ever.

ViviPru · 26/06/2014 14:36

I think remembering you were creeped out by him as a child yourself is a WORLD AWAY from implying even inadvertently that Saville's victims be blamed for their supposed lack of perv-radar.

Original poster
MrsWinnibago · 26/06/2014 14:36

Mexican yes I never looked at him when I was 8 and thought God what a perve!"

I just though "Yuk...he's scary" and never knew why.

OP posts:
OwlCapone · 26/06/2014 14:37

I challenge anyone to think back and remember how much they "loved" him at the time before his activities were known.

I loved Jim'll Fix It and never thought he was at all creepy. I also thought he did some wonderful work for charity.

It is only when I look back at footage that I think it was all horribly creepy - and I don't mean looking at it in the wake of it all coming out.

limitedperiodonly · 26/06/2014 14:37

I used to love to listen to his Sunday R1 show when I was early teens (prime Savile territory Hmm).

The only thing I disliked about it was that it eventually dawned on unsophisticated little me that he wasn't surrounded by a cast of chattering people in the studio but was using sound effects. I used to think that was a bit sad and lonely of him.

Years later the penny dropped that he wasn't actually in the studio at all and that it was pre-recorded Shock

I'm middle-aged now. God knows what other horrible revelations await me before death for not having sufficient nous and believing some of the things I see and am told.

Pagwatch · 26/06/2014 14:38

To be honest, whilst I think Saville was hiding in plain sight in the 80s and beyond, the 60s and 70s were odd in terms of television and what constituted a 'personality'

I think a percentage of the 'ooh I always thought he was dodgy' types are just being wise after the event. His persona was of an eccentric and he played that up.
I never liked him because he was annoying, peculiar and a bit of a berk. It didn't occur to me he might be a paedophile. I just thought he was preposterous.
But tbh if everyone who claims they always knew had actually known I doubt his programmes would have been as massive as they were.

Steben · 26/06/2014 14:38

I had the misfortune to encounter the man on a few occasions (not to closely to he was at same events/notorious restaurant in North Leeds) and found him a creepy character but people did flock round him and I could never understand it. I also often think of the people who went to see his body "in state" at queens hotel and who lined the streets for his funeral and what they make of his fall from grace

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