To wonder what people really thought of Jimmy Savile when he was alive?

[BarmyBrunhilde]

I'm a millennial, and was only really vaguely aware of who he was really, so watching the recent Netflix documentary I was fairly bemused to see how popular he seemed to be. Obviously he was beloved by the establishment, including the royals, Thatcher etc but he seemed to have massive following among the public.

Everyone now seems to say 'oh yes I always knew he was creepy' but I have to wonder - for those who grow up in the 60s-80s how was he really seen? In the documentary it seems like he had always had crowds of screaming and adoring fans, and they generally seemed none the wiser? It seemed like industry people and his poor victims were the only ones who really had any idea.

Child in the 80s. Really wanted to gonon jim'll fix it, but the idea of being near him put me off. Strangely enough, didn't stop me watching it though. Guess tv gets you used to perverts really young.

@Pinklimey

Child in the 80s. Really wanted to gonon jim'll fix it, but the idea of being near him put me off. Strangely enough, didn't stop me watching it though. Guess tv gets you used to perverts really young.

Don’t forget there wasn’t much choice to watching it. And it was good family tv

the only rumour I heard was he didn't let guests use his toilet.

One of the Smashie and Nicey sketches (harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse) parodied this - as they did in general, DJs who "did a lot of great work for charidee, mate"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smashie_and_Nicey

I was born in the 1970s and am a child of 1980s media. I don't really remember him presenting TOTP; perhaps I'm a bit young - and he was largely out of the public eye by the time he looked really grim eg when interviewed by Louis Theroux in the last decade of his life.
My thoughts:
*Jim'll Fix It was the biggest show on kids TV in the 1980s. Everyone watched it, and talked about it in the playground the next day.
*JS didn't always look as extreme as the pictures on the internet would seem to show him now, not when I watched him, anyway (see this picture). He did a lot of sponsored walks and runs in the 1980s and often wore more ordinary sportswear, not always unbuttoned to the waist. Chunky gold jewellery yes, cigars yes, but so did a lot of people in the 1980s.
*It was an innocent time and any innuendo went straight over my head and that of my schoolmates'.
*He was totally and utterly "in" with the establishment, feted by politicians, the royal family, other presenters we knew and respected from kids TV (eg Blue Peter and Newsround). I was taken to meet him at Stoke Mandeville on a school trip which was a huge honour. We didn't know any bad stuff only that he was a good man who raised millions for charity.

My Dad used to get a magazine called The Oldie which printed articles exposing Savile. That was the first I really heard of the terrible things (other than being generally a creep) he had done.

This was printed after his death but before it was widely known:

www.theoldie.co.uk/article/the-oldie-scoop-that-exposed-jimmy-savile
pressgazette.co.uk/why-oldie-exposed-savile-child-abuse-i-just-thought-it-was-good-story/

I also found this:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24564933

The reason I mentioned John Lydon way back up thread was because I have always found it ironic that he was seen to be the scourge of society and the nations morals by certain people when the National treasures were getting away with foul abuse in plain sight. As far as I know, apart from swearing a lot, John Lydon has led a pretty blameless family life since his punk days.

I used to watch Jim'll Fix It as a child in the 70's along with Basil Brush / Dr Who / Generation game, on a Saturday night, and as someone from a non-wealthy family would have given my eye teeth to do some of the things on that show. Funnily enough I didn't know anything about paedophiles but we were constantly warned about stranger danger - usually in the form of a strange man offering you a bribe in the form of sweets / kittens or puppies - not really so different from Jim'll Fix It with hindsight!

What did I think of him? I thought he was a bit scary with the mad hair / cigar / loud voice but as I grew up I just swallowed the "nice charitable do-gooder" narrative, along with many other people. I hope today's generation have better critical thinking skills. I just believed everything I saw on the BBC!

I grew up in the 80s. Really only knew him from Jim'll Fix It which I did watch and enjoyed. Looking back now at the documentary and footage of him, it's quite shocking how creepy he was.

Having said that I absolutely loved Carry On films as a child and that was all older men lusting after pretty young girls/women so that sort of behaviour probably didn't stand out so much at the time. I've since started to watch them again and cringed.

What I find hard is that Jimmy Savile was really hiding in plain sight. Comments he made during interviews etc show that he clearly knew his behaviour was wrong and it felt he was almost goading people into challenging it but most people just seem to laugh along.

What I find hard is that Jimmy Savile was really hiding in plain sight. Comments he made during interviews etc show that he clearly knew his behaviour was wrong and it felt he was almost goading people into challenging it but most people just seem to laugh along

there was an article by Selina Scott in the Times at the weekend about this, where she said she felt she had to laugh along with his comments when she was interviewing him.

I wasn't really allowed to watch Jim'll Fix It so I think one or other of my parents must have thought he was a dirty old man or didn't like him for other reasons. I did see the one where a little girl met Torvill & Dean though. I hope in hindsight that she was well chaperoned...

It was widely acceptable for teenagers and young women to be sexually assalted in that time. It was all considered a big joke (Benny Hill/Carry On films) and very few people spoke out against it.

JS was considered eccentric but harmless by most. He was brazen about his actions and not taken seriously.

I was born in the 60s and always loathed him, remember asking my mum why he was on TOTP as I thought he was too old for it!

My cousin spent a lot of time in Stoke Mandeville and Saville was always there, wondering around wherever he wanted, as long as he had a brush in his hand, he was allowed free range. The nurses apparently told children to pretend to be asleep when he came round.

Utterly despicable man.

I was born in 70 but not in the UK so although I did see Jim'll Fix It and TOTPs from time to time I was not a fan of his.

I thought he was really weird. I have watched the Netflix 2 part programme and it made me wonder - was Jimmy one of the first presenters who represented the working class on BBC? I genuinely don't know but it seemed to me that he tapped into this and worked it to it's fullest advantage.

Particularly with the royal family etc

It was very grim watching and I could not believe how many times he actually made references to his wrong doing live in air and it was always received as a 'joke' - crazy!

The clip of him with Gary Glitter was hideous.

A small group I was with was asked to put on a little bit of interval entertainment for a children's show at the Palladium, this must have been around 1980. JS was one of the stars of the show, and I was told to go and say hello to him backstage. He was in his dressing room, sitting in an armchair like it was his throne. Well over a dozen children were clustered around him, sitting at his feet, leaning on the arms and back of the chair, all adoring eyes and getting as close to him as possible, So many more children in the room milling around waiting for their moment to get close. He was magnetic to them. No adults, not a single one, all as trusting. At late teens (possibly oldest in room bar JS) I was clearly not welcome there, no beaming smiles for me!

My husband had an ex who, as a fifteen year old, worked at the BBC taking tea etc around to the DJs. JS, she told him, was 'handy'. Very glad she had a lucky escape and never had to contend with more than handy.

I found alot of that eras TV to be fucking weird when I moved here in the 80s. Wasn't just saville although he seemed the weirdest. I didn't think he was a pedo but I didn't know what one was. He was however very unsettling

The clip of the cubs eating on the roller coaster was TV gold- always repeated. We regular wrote to Jim to fix it for us at both school and cubs- even Sunday School I remember. I don't think I ever heard anyone speculate about him back then. Scary to think how he was empowered to carry out such abuse

I was born at the end of the 40s so was probably older than a lot of the people posting on here.

I remember Jim'll fix it being on tv and it would sometimes be on in the house. I never watched a lot of tv, anyway at that time so wouldn't have seen much of it.

He was though, as pp have said, all over the place: on tv, in the papers and so on and, for some strange reason, was taken up by a great many influential people.

I do remember disliking him intensely though. I found him grotesque both in appearance and manner and extremely irritating.

I never understood his popularity as he just came across as ridiculous and annoying to my mind.

Obviously, at that time, I had no idea that he was such a vile human being but it really didn't surprise me when everything about him came out.

I haven't, and won't be watching the documentary.

I was born in the 70s and grew up watching Jim'll Fix It. I just thought he was a funny man. No evil vibes at all. I remember being really shocked as an adult when a friend who grew up local to him said (before it all blew up of course) it was well known what a creep he was. Even then I was shocked by the extent of what came out.

It was a different time. Attitudes towards men & young girls were different. Not that what he did was acceptable then, but some of the stuff he said that sounds so awful to today's ears probably didn't sound so outrageous at the time.

Watching the Netflix series I can see glimpses of a really charming personality and very genuine sounding, so I can see why people were taken in by him, but also glimpses of a genuine creepy guy. Fund raising for a new spinal hospital was amazing and he seemed to really care, but he was clearly very complex and a sociopath with a side that just want to gratify his own perversions.

If you want to know how it happened, just look at all the people unwilling to recognise what a woman is. Politicians and celebrities are scared of the backlash they will get from statin biological facts. A lot of trans activists are mini Jimmy Savilles hiding in plain sight.

I’m from Leeds and my Mum (early 50s) said everyone thought he was a weirdo, nobody thought he was a usual sort of guy at all.

Watching the clip of him slobbering over that blonde TV show host during the interview made me feel physically sick.

I thought he was a creep , because he was an ugly old man that used to cuddle up to the girls and I would have hated him to do that to me . The scale of it I had no idea , but he had friends in high places and knew too much for it to come out until his death.

@CandyLeBonBon

I remember him on TOTP. I hated it it when he was on. I was a 70s child and an 80s teenager and really really hated him hosting Totp. I watched jim'll fix it and always wanted to be on it but never wanted to sit in the chair next to him!

This, 100%, is my experience too.

The more I think about it the more I remember that it was fairly normal for creepy older men to touch up teenage girls and young women in the 70s. It was accepted as the way it was and up to you to deal with it. I had a Saturday job in a photographer's shop and the photographer used to try it on in the dark room. I used to push him away and call him a dirty old man and he stopped. I was 17. It's seems awful now but that's how it was - if I'd told anyone I would have lost my job and I wanted the pocket money. It happened all the time.

All that was nothing compared to the abuse of children in hospital, though. It's very hard to see how he got away with that.

I was born in 1978 and was always disappointed that Jim didn't fix it for me to be an air hostess! My mum was never too keen on him and I just thought he was eccentric. I don't think I knew what a paedophile was then, although I knew about stranger danger. I would never have thought the BBC would be housing such a monster. I've watched the Netflix documentary, and was appalled, and last night I watched 'Savile' on YouTube - the documentary Louis Theroux made in 2016 questioning why no-one (including himself) had picked up on Jimmy's sordid ways. It was horrifying - especially the footage of Jimmy when he thought he wasn't being filmed, exposing him for the nasty man he was, and the very distressing interviews with some of his victims.

Birn late 70s, I loved Jim'll fix it and wrote in, and also loved Rolf Harris in the 80s. Looking back you see the creepiness but at the time i definitely didn't and I presume my parents didn't either or they might have stopped me watching/writing.