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.

Timmy mallet has always given me the creeps I've been waiting for something to come out about him for years and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it did come out that he was also a wrong un.

I was a kid in his Jim'll Fix It heyday, just a little younger than most of his victims.
So no coherent thoughts on him at the time, but a very sharp sense of wrongness. A feeling that there was something ... alien about him.

Possibly the reptile brain picking up on psychopathic indicators I was too young to process.
Possibly seeing some traits & micro-expressions in him that were similar to the adult who ... enough said (CSA survivor).

Yup! The Psychopathic Stare.

https://www.learning-mind.com/psychopathic-stare-cues/

Article is v dumbed down, but gives the gist adequately.

I remember watching this TOTP episode and thinking his eyes were dead, and his grip on Coleen Nolan was far too tight.
www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9375681/Coleen-Nolan-reveals-paedophile-Jimmy-Savile-invited-hotel-suite-just-14.html

I was a child of the 70s and found him odd and unsettling but wouldn't have been able to articulate that at the time. I remember being perplexed that he was popular. Most, if not all, of the children I knew watched Jim'll Fix It but I never heard anyone ever say they were a fan of his or that they even liked him, in fact, he was not mentioned much at all. We talked about the children in the show and what they had "fixed". In contrast we did like and talk about members of other kids shows such as Tiswas and Swap Shop.

Like others have said really liked Rolf Harris!

Always felt uncomfortable even as a small child. Made me squirm - and I could see clearly that he was embarrassing people with his creepyness.

I saw the Louis Theroux documentary at the time it was first shown. I wondered at the time whether he was gay and in the closet, as it was referred to then.

If you lived anywhere near Leeds you knew! It was a very badly kept secret. However I loved Jim fix it. One of my favourite shows

Thought he was weird and slightly uncomfortable to watch. I didn't think he was creepy, but had no concept of creepiness at that age (primary school), unlike my adult self. I just didn't like him.

Born in the late 70s. I genuinely thought he was an eccentric oddball type, but harmless. I never met him, this was just through seeing him on TV appearances - Jim'll Fix It mainly, interviews, then later on the Louis Theroux episode. I had no idea. I wish I could say I detected a creepy vibe, but I'd be lying.

In my working life at different times I've supported two elderly men who have turned out to be a sex offenders - in both instances, until I was informed, again I was completely oblivious to any kind of weirdness or creepiness. They both seemed like pleasant inoffensive people.

I was born in the 70s and loved him, wrote to jim'll fix it but never got accepted- thankfully.
I was so shocked when the truth came out.

I was working in what was BBC television centre in the late 80s.
school trips were cancelled and the “young looking” members of staff were sent to work elsewhere.
everyone knew.

My mum knew him when she was a teenager in the late 1960s / early 1970s. He never tried anything on her, she says, but he was well known to be a creepy player and very free with his hands. She would never let me write in to Jim’ll fix it though….

I loved Jim'll Fix It as a kid. I thought he was funny but a little odd. Like one poster mentioned I had no awareness of sexual abuse so would never have even thought it.

He gave me the creeps and the fact my father (another horrible man) loved him made me even more warey. These men recognise each other. Then met someone who moved in similar circles and her father told her to never be alone with him. People knew what he was but never challenged it. Disgraceful behaviour all round regardless of the time.

when i moved to the uk from another country and saw him on the tv i was shocked such a pervy creepy character was celebrated by kids and (simple?) adults, my alarms were red and going off big time that there is something very very off about him. Was there something in the tap water that put the adult population asleep back then?

I was at least a teen when he was first on TV and could never understand why people liked him, he didn’t appeal at all. But it wasn’t outright revulsion.

My DM (always a hyper sensitive type) met him (inc. handshakes etc.) at a charity do at Broadmoor hospital - my folks were friends with the chief psychiatrist there and his wife. This was probably in the late 70s or early 80s, and my DM told me afterwards that he gave her seriously creepy shivers. She actually shuddered as she said it.

I watched Jim’s Fix It as a child of the 70’s and didn’t think anything much about him - as a child I had no awareness of sexual abuse so it wouldn’t have been something I’d think about. I just thought he was a bit of an odd man. I did want to write in though.

My mum at the time worked in tv continuity and absolutely refused to let us write in, speaking to her when it all came out she said it was common knowledge in the industry hence her not entertaining the idea of one of us writing to him or attending anything he was making a personal appearance at.

He assaulted boys as well

Haven’t RTFT, but he used to DJ in the clubs in and around Manchester in the 60s, when my aunt was in her late teens/early 20s. She told me that even then, all the girls knew not to go near him if they didn’t want to be groped. He had a real reputation for it.

I distinctly remember adults joking about necrophilia and him hanging about morgues in the 80s and at school too because likely heard it from our parents.

So there were clearly people who thought his obsession with being around hospitals all the time was weird.

My mum always hated him and we never watched his shows. But my mum totally hated Thatcher so him being in with her was a red flag. When it all came out mum was like I KNEW IT!!

PPs have mentioned the tension between the revulsion a lot of people felt and the intense conditioning to be polite. Absolutely true, but it was more than that. Plenty of people did report him - victims and others - and were shut down, told not to tell such awful lies about this Good Man who did so much for charity and hospitals. Children were thought to be unreliable witnesses because they "made up stories", which has been debunked. As a victim of CSA I was talked about, not talked to. The adults decided what was true. Believing child victims is quite a recent thing.

People were deliberately forced to suppress their disgust, but there was plenty of disgust, though of course there was genuine adoration from many.
The revulsion and suspicion was real and visceral for those of us who felt it and not just hindsight. I encountered him on a sleeper train and thought he exuded a nasty vibe, not just eccentricity. He stared at me sideways with a real sneering look. I commented on it to my bf who I was travelling with because I was genuinely unsettled. He started off alone yet a few hours into the trip he was surrounded by young women at his table, which I found astonishing. Fame is a magnet.

I believe that some people have a well developed creep radar and some don't. Children can see through them more than adults, who have been socialised into "mustn't say things like that" and fear of the consequences of false accusation.
That socialisation and the belief that we shouldn't accuse is still an issue now. Several times I've seen MN threads were an OP describes screamingly obvious red flags, predatory behaviour and even evidence of sexual assault. The replies are sharply divided by people like me saying KEEP YOUR CHILD / YOURSELF AWAY FROM HIM and others saying "awww, he's just being friendly / nice / helpful" and berating others for being suspicious of a kindly old man. The latter people seem to think it's worse to keep a child from unsupervised contact with someone, for fear of causing offence, than to risk the child suffering horrendous assaults. They just won't let themselves believe that might happen.

JS was an extreme case, as a prolific offender using his fame and good works to commit crimes right under our noses. Smaller league offenders are around us all the time, getting away with it because someone isn't sure they have enough evidence or don't want to offend.

Boys, girls, adults, children, and there's strong circumstantial evidence that the deceased people in the mortuary weren't safe either. An exceptionally prolific and determined offender.

I just don't understand,why he was allowed free reign at Broadmoor ,or stoke Mandeville and Jimmy,s who would have believed vulnerable patients against the sainted, Jimmy Saville?
he also had free reign at a reformed school for girls ,why?