Page 8 | Jimmy Saville documentary on Netflix

SevenWaystoLeave · 07/04/2022 22:51

*that should say "never in a position or a demographic"

EmeraldShamrock1 · 07/04/2022 22:55

There is a police whistle-blower podcast with James English throughout the 80's and early 90's men were pretty comfortably sexually abusing vulnerable DC.

The police weren't interested.

When you delve into the murder of Jill Dando your eyes would water.

The good old days better known as perverted playground of secrets.

MasterBeth · 07/04/2022 22:56

@Lovebroccoli

Well I don't think anyone's going to cone forward now and say 'Oh I didn't think he was creepy as all, I loved him as a child

I used to enjoy Jim'll Fix It, and I don't remember having any opinion at all of him when I was a child. I certainly didn't love him, but didn't see him as anyone to be frightened of either.

To be honest, I'm a bit surprised by all these people who say they 'always knew' or 'always thought he was creepy.' It's blatantly obvious that most of the population thought he was wonderful.

It’s not true to say “most of the population thought he was wonderful”, any more than it would be to say that most of the population now think Simon Cowell or David Walliams are wonderful. Savile was a TV personality, not a national role model.

MrsAmber · 07/04/2022 22:56

Just reading about Wogan above reminds me of his interview with Bill Wymon and Mandy Smith, in the very late 80s, he was 52 she was 19! Was just ‘normal’ back then wasn’t it!

MrsAmber · 07/04/2022 22:59

*Wyman

MasterBeth · 07/04/2022 23:01

@Clumsyvolcano

It’s called Hindsight bias - no one knew anything, they just think they knew or are saying so now they know what a heinous bastard he was.

I must admit he was one ugly bugger though 😂

No, plenty of people knew. Some thought it was a kind of “urban legend” but there are lots of contemporary accounts of Savile being known as a creep, and worse:

: www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/apr/01/the-day-i-thwarted-jimmy-savile-mark-lawson-on-trying-to-stop-britains-worst-sex-offender

totallyfrusted · 07/04/2022 23:04

My Mum was a model in the late 70’s and 80’s and on odd occasions if they needed a child model I would go along. Rolf Harris was quite often the compare at these shows and all the women were told to keep away from him as he was known to be ‘handy’.

I remember it being discussed but no one ever thought to complain about it. Very different times.

I also loved Jim’ll fix it and wrote in several times. Nothing to do with Jimmy Savile I just wanted to meet Duran Duran

knowinglesseveryday · 07/04/2022 23:08

@AlternativePerspective

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?

I'm of the generation that remember him from the 70s and 80s. He was only popular with the establishment and some young people. Everyone at my uni thought he was disgusting and creepy, and middle aged even then. Truly he wasn't popular with whole sections of youth, from what I could see.

colouringindoors · 07/04/2022 23:11

I'm 50. He was creepy as fuck even then.

knowinglesseveryday · 07/04/2022 23:12

And young women with much much older men wasn't considered normal either. It was accepted and believed that some women were in it for the money, though. The more subtle politics of it was probably more removed from our thinking.

190190tnt · 07/04/2022 23:59

Grew up watching him on TV, think he seems more creepy now because we now know what he was doing ! We always thought he was eccentric, there was always this story that he kept his dead mum's clothes in his wardrobes, think because he did a lot for charity people probably overlooked his oddness, he was probably seen as a quirky, altruistic celebrity.....how shocking when everything came out and yet it came as no surprise - oddness was actually weirdness/creepiness and total perviness.

Caminante · 08/04/2022 00:11

@SpiderinaWingMirror

I too an highly suspicious of all those who "knew", said he was creepy. He was a character, not unlike lots of "celebrities" in the 1970s. Every DJ was a character. He raised stack loads of money for charity, ran marathons before it was a thing. Surrounded himself with pretty women. Of course he was utterly reprehensible and his victims we not listened to and ignored. Those that were told did not act. But to the general public he was just a bit of an odd bod DJ celebrity who was on the telly.

Absolutely. I didn't know a single child that didn't love Jim'll Fix It. Wish fulfilment is compelling. I've been wracking my brains to remember if I found him creepy or "off" as so many people are saying now, but I don't think I did. I did think he had an odd way of speaking to children, like he didn't really understand them. He didn't say the typical things that adults usually said to kids. But other than that, nope, I had no inkling.

Tdetfrgrgf · 08/04/2022 00:11

I'm in my early 30s and never watched any of his programmes. When the allegations began to come out after he'd died, I was studying to be a journalist. My tutor, a professional journalist herself, was saying how stunned she was, and how she'd always thought so highly of him because of all his charity work, and how she'd often see him running for charity through her home town.

I vividly remember thinking 'this woman must be thick if she fell for that'. It was so, so obvious. Not the necrophilia, but definitely him being a paedo. Like a PP, I remain thoroughly sceptical of public displays of charity work.

LampLighter414 · 08/04/2022 00:14

Tory Britain for most of his time hosting Jim'll fix it.

No doubt some of the politicians were part of the whole ring of wrong uns

Clumsyvolcano · 08/04/2022 00:20

@MasterBeth

I meant the general public by and large would not have been aware.

VashtaNerada · 08/04/2022 00:23

As a child I desperately wanted to go on Jim’ll Fix It. I never saw him as creepy because I simply had no idea that adults could behave in a sexual way towards children, it was completely outside my frame of reference. As an adult I thought he was an odd character with secrets but genuinely didn’t hear the rumours. At the time of the Louis Theroux doc I actually thought he was asexual and ashamed of it, so made up the stories about having girlfriends. Perhaps I’m naive but it really did come as a shock to me.

Tdetfrgrgf · 08/04/2022 01:04

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1338776-Cult-of-Celebrity

Interesting thread. A very vindicated OP.

Redglitter · 08/04/2022 01:08

@Tdetfrgrgf

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1338776-Cult-of-Celebrity

Interesting thread. A very vindicated OP.

That thread didn't age well did it 🙈

Interesting to see the responses at that time

Comeoninandclosethedoor · 08/04/2022 01:13

@AnotherPoster

I'm late 50s and of that era. Yes, he was odd, but a lot of the comments you heard him make in the documentary - along the lines of 'what are you doing later?' and suggestive comments about girls - were totally commonplace in those days. I don't mean I approve of them, but whenever I hear people talking in the 70s, clips from game shows, vox pops, etc, I am shocked by how much has changed in what is deemed acceptable.

So yes, we all thought he was eccentric and odd, but his public persona was very much one of doing tireless work for charity. Of course, knowing what we now do, it is impossible to hear his comments and not see them as creepy.

Yes I'm in my late 50s and this was my view of him too.

In fact I came away with the opposite reaction to you op after watching the documentary. I came away with a better understanding of how everyone had been duped because I had mainly remembered the "how's about that then boys and girls" zany but creepy image but had forgotten how intelligent, intuitively bright, and manipulative he was until I saw him again in this documentary. Yes he was repulsive but he knew when to wheel it in and when to become serious, when he could dominate and when he could speak perilously close to the truth. And evidently, he was supremely good at fund-raising, very self disciplined and energetic and determinedly dedicated to his own aggrandisement and his career as a prolific paedophile. I don't think anyone knew how to handle him. And like all psychopaths, he was fearless and callous, exploited the weak and made sure he had a hold over people who could potentially expose his crimes. The supposed subterfuge which allowed him to beguile everyone was that he was a humble man dedicated to raising money for good causes, but he covered this up by playing the eccentric old rogue who loved the limelight. It was a very clever ploy which allowed the psychopath to hide in plain side.

Redglitter · 08/04/2022 01:22

When you watch the documentary now knowing what we do, some of his comments are absolutely appaling. He's basically admitting on camera to being a sexual predator. God he must have had a right laugh at the fact he was so blatant & still got away with it.

ihatethefuckingmuffin · 08/04/2022 02:50

The anonymous letter that was handed over to West Yorkshire police and nothing done. I lived up there and it was well known about him and I was banned from writing in to the show. Moved near BBC studio and again banned from top of the pops and the studio. He came to visit my school in Leeds didn't see him as I wasn't allowed to go to school that day.
But as others have said. He blackmailed and threatened people to stay quiet.

Journalists writing about him well before he died, nothing followed up on.
His journalist mate from Leeds not aware of the rumours yet they were rife up there including him being in a paedo ring.

Advising the royal family wtaf. Maggie begging the queen for years about making him a Sir, she should have carried on listening to whatever voice was screaming no fucking way.

BBC not wanting to air the original documentary about the victims from friends reunited, so it was handed over to ITV.
Member of the nutters club at Broadmoor before he was handed the keys to the place because the patients recognised him as one of them.

His victims started going to the police way back in the 50's and every single on of his victims were bad!y let down by several police forces.

This pdf about the investigation into his years at broadmoor is shocking and potentially triggering for some.

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.com/url?q=assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/323458/Broadmoor_report.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjpk7WmqYP3AhWSTcAKHYGsAC0QFnoECAoQAg&usg=AOvVaw3ahSPiuBlnN57PqMvZVCkI" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.google.com/url?q=assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/323458/Broadmoor_report.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwjpk7WmqYP3AhWSTcAKHYGsAC0QFnoECAoQAg&usg=AOvVaw3ahSPiuBlnN57PqMvZVCkI

flyhighshiningstar · 08/04/2022 03:54

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oakleaffy · 08/04/2022 04:45

Mum {Stepmum}detested him at the height of his ''Fame''
She actually cried one Christmas Day as her parents were wittering on about him being ''Marvellous'' and ''Doing so much for Charity'

Mum said ''I think he's horrible, and there is something very distasteful about him''

She was proved right.
Vile pervert.

oakleaffy · 08/04/2022 04:49

@Tdetfrgrgf

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1338776-Cult-of-Celebrity

Interesting thread. A very vindicated OP.

Bloody hell!

Some of the comments from 2011 are astounding.

Some detested Savile at the time, but many were duped by his ''Charidee'' persona.

sashh · 08/04/2022 04:51

@AnotherPoster

I'm late 50s and of that era. Yes, he was odd, but a lot of the comments you heard him make in the documentary - along the lines of 'what are you doing later?' and suggestive comments about girls - were totally commonplace in those days. I don't mean I approve of them, but whenever I hear people talking in the 70s, clips from game shows, vox pops, etc, I am shocked by how much has changed in what is deemed acceptable.

So yes, we all thought he was eccentric and odd, but his public persona was very much one of doing tireless work for charity. Of course, knowing what we now do, it is impossible to hear his comments and not see them as creepy.

I'm 55, the 70s were very sexist, on TV and off.

And little girls were often put in a position to kiss older men. If you went to see Santa you sat on his knee and gave him a kiss.

A theatre company comes to school, a little girl is picked to kiss one of the actors.

For teachers dating a student was almost a perk of the job. I don't remember it at my school, but it was a girls school run by nuns, and we knew which nun not to go anywhere near.

The VI form was at my brother's school, the headmaster was friends with my parents. He told a story about how he's been contacted by someone from the fire station next tot he school to appologise because some of the firefighters had been watching the new VI form girls arrive and making comments to each other, the headmaster's response was, "Don't worry, it's the same in our staffroom"

So this is a head teacher, who is so not bothered by adult men eyeing up 16 year old girls and thinking it's not just OK but it is funny. And this was a year before I went to that VI form.