Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Jimmy Saville documentary on Netflix

365 replies

AlternativePerspective · 07/04/2022 12:39

Have just watched this, obviously we all know what he did and the absolutely reprehensible individual he was.

But watching the documentary and all the clips they played, even if he hadn’t committed all those hideous acts, he was a really creepy repulsive bloke. So why did the nation love him so much?

I’m not talking royals and other celebs etc, but ordinary people. The people who filed past his coffin after his death, and mourned his passing, sent in hundreds of tributes etc. Why? He was just so repulsive. Or is it just me?

OP posts:
moita · 10/04/2022 21:23

@MermaidEyes that video is absolutely shocking looking back. Also feel for the other band members who I do believe didn't know.

These men are so devious.

Musicandcheese · 10/04/2022 21:46

I've just been watching it again, and I was struck by how much Selina Scott looked like Princess Diana. She had the same way of tilting her head too. (Just an aside).
I was also taken aback by all the hints that JS gave away about his activities, but evidently no-one at the time picked up on them, or maybe they did, but he was just too much of a popular figure and had too many powerful friends for them to do anything about it.

SevenWaystoLeave · 10/04/2022 21:59

@Musicandcheese

I've just been watching it again, and I was struck by how much Selina Scott looked like Princess Diana. She had the same way of tilting her head too. (Just an aside). I was also taken aback by all the hints that JS gave away about his activities, but evidently no-one at the time picked up on them, or maybe they did, but he was just too much of a popular figure and had too many powerful friends for them to do anything about it.
The thing is he'd throw these hints in as parts of much longer banter/storytelling til it's almost blink and you miss it, or just another part of a whole string of jokes you're primed not to take that seriously. The most disturbing line to me is the one where he talks about punishing himself with young ladies because he's not kind to them and makes them go ouch. Unlike other stuff he said which almost became a catchphrase ("my case comes up next Thursday") that felt real and very strange. Even the interviewer obviously found it strange. But then no one follows up and it's just another piece in the archives.
crepesncream · 11/04/2022 10:10

I didn't understand the relevance of that remark "my case comes up next Thursday" Confused What was it all about?

notacooldad · 11/04/2022 10:18

I remember not liking him as a child because I thought he was scruffy and loud. Anything ' loud' about a person frightened me a bit.
This isnt with hindsight or anything because I did like Rolf Harris. I didnt have any sense if foreboding because that wasnt within my range if knowledge or emotions ad a child. I just hated the stupid modeling and the "now then, now then'' sayings he did.

notacooldad · 11/04/2022 10:19

Pressed to soon.
Middling was meant to be yoddeling!
Few other typos!! 🤷‍♀️

MrsPelligrinoPetrichor · 11/04/2022 11:07

@crepesncream

I didn't understand the relevance of that remark "my case comes up next Thursday" Confused What was it all about?
He was saying his court case comes up on Thursday ( for having sex with underage girls)
BurgerKingAddict · 11/04/2022 11:24

He said it loads of times.
Vile piece of shit. Mocking us all on tv.

EmeraldShamrock1 · 11/04/2022 12:21

He teased the media, anyone who had suspicious thoughts about JS would have been left with no doubt after the interviews.

I do wonder how far we've came from there or are we still disillusioned while similar atrocious actions are being played out under our nose, defacing DC in this crazy world.

I don't think we are protecting DC enough.

daimbarsatemydogsbone · 11/04/2022 12:41

@EmeraldShamrock1

He teased the media, anyone who had suspicious thoughts about JS would have been left with no doubt after the interviews.

I do wonder how far we've came from there or are we still disillusioned while similar atrocious actions are being played out under our nose, defacing DC in this crazy world.

I don't think we are protecting DC enough.

I wonder about this too. I have a friend who worked in Newspapers for most of the 1980s - he told me sometime in the 1980s about Savile. I didn't know what to think at the time as what he said was so far from the general perception of Savile at the time.

My friend went on to reel off details of the private lives of a number of other celebs - I often wonder if all of it was true, or 50%, or 80% or only Savile - no way to know.

I do know a lot of people my age (59) were sexually abused as kids by adults close to them, including me, and it wasn't taken very seriously.

MermaidEyes · 11/04/2022 13:38

I've just had an ad pop up on my Facebook for a Discovery channel documentary called Jimmy Savile - The People who Knew...what is it with all these Savile programmes lately?

crepesncream · 11/04/2022 15:14

That thing his mother said I thought was quite telling....as in his upbringing. He asked her why did she beat him so often. She said "I didn't beat you enough, spare the rod and spoil the child".

Well all that beating didn't do him any good did it. Look what it produced.

RoseAndRose · 11/04/2022 15:21

I thought she was teasing when she said that

BurgerKingAddict · 11/04/2022 17:50

I wonder what he did in the days he spent alone with her dead body Envy . . . Well I don’t actually want to know

LeavesOnTrees · 11/04/2022 17:58

I thought the 'my case Comes Up Next Thursday' was the same as C U Next Tuesday

Hint : put the capital letters together.

daimbarsatemydogsbone · 11/04/2022 18:02

@RoseAndRose

I thought she was teasing when she said that
I bet it was a fake joke based in reality like "my case comes up on Thursday".
QueenBitch666 · 11/04/2022 22:47

@Palloom

Nowadays he wouldn't have to front charities and infiltrate influential people's lives to groom and assault the vulnerable girls/women that he did.

He could just say he was a woman and that would be that. Access all areas.

I was just thinking exactly the same thing. And there's TRAs fighting for the rights of self id perverts Envy
QueenBitch666 · 11/04/2022 23:07

@Sixlegsfoward88

I must admit I get a sort of creepy vibe from Russell Brand but of course that is just a feeling of mine, it's not based on fact, and I have never met him. He might be a fine upstanding person for all I know .
Same here. He makes my skin crawl Envy
EveryFlightBeginsWithAFall · 11/04/2022 23:33

Think she was saying you didn't get beaten enough spare the rod spoil the child as in he was bloody spoilt and probably not beaten at all

crepesncream · 12/04/2022 00:06

But it was strange he said "why did you beat me so much". He wouldn't say it if it wasn't true If she hadn't she would have said she never did surely.

VashtaNerada · 12/04/2022 07:43

^“Nowadays he wouldn't have to front charities and infiltrate influential people's lives to groom and assault the vulnerable girls/women that he did.

He could just say he was a woman and that would be that. Access all areas.”^

Missed this upthread but what a terrible thing to say. Trans people aren’t more likely to abuse nor do they have some kind of magic privilege to access vulnerable children. On a thread about actual abuse that’s a really unpleasant thing to say.

Moreandmoreandmore · 12/04/2022 08:00

Hiding in plain sight, still happening today . What kind of adults want to talk to young children about sex, completely ignoring other peoples concerns and decrying them as prudes? thefamilysexshow.com/tfss.

MrsPelligrinoPetrichor · 12/04/2022 08:42

@VashtaNerada

^“Nowadays he wouldn't have to front charities and infiltrate influential people's lives to groom and assault the vulnerable girls/women that he did.

He could just say he was a woman and that would be that. Access all areas.”^

Missed this upthread but what a terrible thing to say. Trans people aren’t more likely to abuse nor do they have some kind of magic privilege to access vulnerable children. On a thread about actual abuse that’s a really unpleasant thing to say.

That's not what the poster said. They said HE (Jimmy Savile) would be able to do that- and he would!
endofthelinefinally · 12/04/2022 08:57

"Trans people aren’t more likely to abuse nor do they have some kind of magic privilege to access vulnerable children. On a thread about actual abuse that’s a really unpleasant thing to say."

It would be a terrible thing if anybody had actually said it. Nobody has said this.

There are plenty of cases of predatory men pretending to be trans in order to molest/assault women and children though. Just as JS pretended to be a public spirited charity worker and hospital volunteer. Nowadays he would have another string to his bow that nobody in authority would challenge.

HRTQueen · 12/04/2022 10:28

Interesting that patients in Broadmoor invited him to join their club (well according to JS)

Certainly some will have picked up on his behaviour as being a sexual predator

Swipe left for the next trending thread