Why wasn’t more made of this?

[Iamnotagoddess]

Apologies for DM link

I read Mandy Smiths book when it came out in 1994 and remember at the time she was made out to be a “silly girl” or a bit of a “slag” in the media when she was nothing of the sort.

There were comedy sketches of Bill Wyman wheeling her down the aisle in a pram

Looking back though it’s not actually that funny.

Mandy Smith was a victim of child abuse - why is it all brushed under the carpet esp with the #MeToo movement?

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6995477/How-Rolling-Stone-Bill-Wyman-glosses-relationship-13-year-old-Mandy-Smith-new-biopic.html

Cos he's a Rolling Stone! He isn't creepy weird Jimmy Saville or Gary Glitter. He's a rock icon. If you are a man who other men admire, then hey, the rules don't apply.

I truly hope that’s not the case nowadays though - surely no current ‘rock icon’ could start dating a 13 year old child and get away with it?! i’d like to think not anyway.

Yes times have changed thank god, I’m only a little younger than Mandy Smith and can remember being expected to silently accept all sorts of shit from boys/men pretty much from puberty onwards that would be (rightly) considered outrageous nowadays. The only thing I don’t understand is why BW isn’t now retrospectively being slated and seen for what he really is.

Attitudes were different (and wrong imo) back then.

There's a Jacqueline Wilson story written about a girl who falls in love with her teacher (and he reciprocates). It's written as a romantic love story, whereas now it would be written as grooming.

I've come across this a few times in older books. Things were written in a "this is so romantic, love against the odds", and indeed, I can remember reading books back then and thinking that. Now I read them with a sense of how wrong they are and that it's pure and simple grooming.

I was a teenager at the time and it was seen by my friendship group as weird and creepy. Poor kid was massively let down by the adults around her and he should be questioned by police. He raped a child .

Sorry, yes of course, Priscilla Presley not his daughter Lisa

I remember the dreadful mother who spent weeks and weeks in bed feigning illness whilst her children were out in west end nightclubs but who then made a miraculous recovery as soon as she was infamous.

There is a brilliant novel called 'Putney' by Sofka Zinovieff which is set in the 70s and examines exactly this issue of teen child relationships with older adult men and the whole question of how Things Were Different then.

It raises some serious questions.

You're right, she was (is) a few years older than me and I remember wondering why is this happening, why is it allowed. I was disgusted. And I was basically a child if I was younger even than MS when she got together with that filthy perve.

Is that Independent article a bit madly written, or have I lost the ability to read English?

@RedForShort

It’s like it’s written by someone coming down after a heavy night.

I was watching a documentary about Ginger Baker from Cream last night - he left his wife for his daughter’s friend, he couldn’t remember if she had been 17 or 18, and called her “very sexy girl”. Yes 17 is different from 13 but it’s still creepy AF.

I was 13 in 1988.

I was very “well developed” for my age and I remember grown men (my dads colleagues) behaving in a sexually inappropriate manner towards me.

I didn’t have huge boundaries and aged 14/15 I had sexually relationships with adult men. I have mixed feelings about this now.

I also worked in bars where the attitude from men toward a young women behind a bar was quite frankly disgusting.

This thing with Bill Wyman was a bit hiding in plain sight isn’t it?

Because he was a man with status and power. Because it seems to be standard for that time, and because women and girls still to this day don't have the rights and voice we should have.

Dirty bastards.

It was typical of the time, the authorities didn't really care about underage sex even though normal people did.

Lots of people thought it was unacceptable. I remember my dad banning newspapers containing articles about it eg News of the World because he didn't want me (13 at the time) thinking this was ok or normal.

I'm not sure this was taken so seriously or seen as child abuse then.

Back in the 90s I had a friend, I met her when I was 17 and she was seeing someone 30, not a massive deal as she was over the age of consent. But prior to him she'd had a 28 year old boyfriend at the age of 14 for a couple of years. She'd even gone abroad with this guy on holiday so her parents were aware, no one batted an eyelid.

I’ve read that Jacqueline Wilson story. I thought it was only written that way because it was the girl’s point of view - it was certainly to written at a time when the social conscience was that it was completely wrong. I felt really odd reading it as a child.

Unlike all the creepy ones like Saville and Gadd, Wyman never hid it.

Love Lessons was the Jacquline Wilson book. I remember reading it when babysitting and thinking how unrealistic as the protagonist was so young- shows how naive I was!

I remember a lot being made of it at the time, but it was pre social media and everything ran slower, fewer facts were known.

At the same time, and for decades before, there had been the Wild Child and Baby Groupies - all of whom would have claimed to be self guiding, emancipated etc.

As much as we recognise it for abuse these days it simply wasn't see that way as much back then. Yes, eyebrows we're raised, but social mores we're entirely different.

Instead of seeing it as horrendous that it happened back then see it as we, society, have grown up, changed since then and much more if an outcry would raised. And then hope you are proved right, should it ever happen near you!

It’s one of those situations that you look back on and think WTF. Monica Lewinsky is another one. Steal yourself and read the comments on that DM article and you can see that nothing much has changed at all.

I also vaguely recall reading some stuff about Mandy Smith a few years ago. If I remember rightly, she has suffered massively with her mental health, disordered eating, etc and has found solace in religion. Although she doesn’t see herself as a victim, it doesn’t take a massive leap to connect her adult struggles with a very unhealthy childhood.

i always thought it was disgusting her mum should be ashamed

It was very much not the norm or acceptable behaviour or glossed over or not taken seriously.There was widespead unfavourable press coverage.

Bill Wyman got away with it because neither Mandy nor her mother (who seems to have been mesmerised by celebrity and the perks that come with it in the same way Michael Jackson's victims families were) didn't want to press charges.

No one acted. People either did not question it because it's what rock stars do and they don't live by the social norms of the rest of society, or because to speak up and challenge people as powerful as that is not done and means going out on a limb. At the time, many things were accepted I guess.

They still are.
The behaviour of footballers, and other young male sports stars, to women generally goes pretty much unchallenged.
We are afraid to speak up about anything to do with race, creed and inappropriate behaviour. Male gangs who exploit teenage girls and young women sexually in the north east and north west of England are usually moslem - research the cases brought to court and count.
Knife crime is concentrated (but not entirely) in London and mainly linked to black and asian young men but is presented as a national problem amongst all young people. Look at the photos and names of the people it has happened to and who commit it.

I know I will be flamed for this but it is true. We do not, still today, speak up about things honestly. We gloss and pretend and ignore then have to pick up the consequences later.

I’ve just had a quick look back at the Mail Online. I can’t get the links to paste, but there have been three articles in the last couple of days about this. My comment above was based on my read of the first one as I hadn’t seen the newest. It’s interesting (and slightly stomach churning) to see how the narrative has changed from “Poor silly Bill” to “Poor damaged Mandy” across the articles. Although there is an editorial shift, there is still a strong whiff of Bill as hapless victim when little details like insisting that she travel on her sister’s passport give away that he was well aware of the issues and acting very carefully to maintain his relationship with a child.

I read Mandy Smith's autobiography and I agree that it was just wrong. I met The Rolling Stones through work last year and had a good chat with Charlie Watts but as soon as Bill Wyman approached I made my excuses and left.