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.

Which establishment figures?

From what I know, many disliked him but he was rather protected.
It would be nice to know, helps prevent the same thing occurring again.

I used to watch Jim'll Fix It and even wrote a letter though my dad went nuts when he found out and didn't like us watching the show. My mum didn't mind Jimmy S (at the time) but my dad always used to tell us that if we ever saw a man like Jimmy S in the street to cross the road to avoid him.

I liked watching Jim'll Fix It but he definitely creeped me out. I definitely got a weird vibe about him.

Same with RH. The weird panting creeped me out too.

I think part of the problem is that creepiness and overly sexual / misogynistic behaviour was very much normalised on 1970s - early 1980s TV.

I hated the sketch type shows of that time, even as a child I found them inappropriate (Dick Emery, Les Dawson, Tommy Cooper, Kenny Everett, Benny Hill etc), so when it came to Jimmy Saville he was just another creepy man.

I did watch his shows - but remember liking the actual ‘fix’ bit and not the chat in between - he used to run in our local marathon and 1000s of people would be waiting for him to pass by and cheer him on.

I’m not at all surprised about Michael Jackson either, but was quite a fan of Rolf and loved It’s a Knock Out with Stuart Hall.

Child of the 70-80's here and I found him creepy, his body language, eyes and hands always too close for comfort with women and girls. We would watch the news stories and my whole family would cringe at him.

Not for the same reasons but I also found the misogyny of 1970's James Bond films difficult to watch back then and The Benny Hill Show used to totally creep me out as a young teen.

I have added these examples to show how mainstream TV was different back then, thankfully it's moved on. Sadly though, I think the internet has taken over the objectification of women and is even worse than the misogyny of the 60's/70's.

I was born in 1978, wrote to jim'll fix it a few times. I don't remember having much of an opinion on him although I was surrounded by sex offenders in my family so doubt my radar was any good.

First time I realised how creepy he was was when I read that Irvine Welsh book when I was about twenty (was it Filth) that had a character who was clearly based on him who was abusing corpses.

Who is (RH)?

Years ago I worked with a doctor who'd trained in that part of Leeds during that time period, it was well known what an absolute bucket of vileness he was, but it seemed to be overlooked because of his work for "charidee" and his, er, closeness to and adoring approbation by Thatcher, the Royals and the general Establishment......

I realise that now, but when the story first broke it was the girls that were the focus. That surprised me because I thought that boys would be his preferred target.

Funnily enough a (male) friend saw him as a child at Butlins or some such place. He didn’t get creepy vibes but said that he just remembers what a horrible human being he was - so nasty. He wasn’t particularly surprised either.

But doing his drawings and on the tv programme with the sick animals he seemed so lovely. Hiding in plain site as they say.

I used to love Jim'll Fix it and wrote in. I found his appearance fascinatingly awful. He was definitely strange.

My dad had a run in with RH as a child where he was horrible to him. He was staying in a house on his road.

I was born in the 60s and we used to watch Jim’ll Fix It. I don’t remember having an opinion about Savile other than not liking his cigar and thinking if I was to receive one of the Jim Fixed It For Me medals I’d put it over my own head. But I think that was more because he was a bloke I didn’t know, rather than a creepy bloke.

I worked in the LGI intermittently from 1984 until JS died and was always aware of the fact he would turn up at the hospital to “work” with the porters, which we all thought was attention seeking ego stroking rather than what it actually was. I had no inkling of the rumours until my friend, a children’s nurse, told me that the Sister on her ward had a No Savile policy. This must have been mid 90s. And I happened to be walking through the main entrance while Louis Theroux was filming, which was the only time I saw him close up. By then I had heard the rumours and wondered whether any of the fawning entourage were aware.

Someone upthread posted a link to the LGI report, which I had not seen and have bookmarked for interest. Times have changed immensely. There was just no such thing as whistleblowing.

Creepy and strange, even as a child the innuendo was there

I'm a 90s millenial but my mum & aunt were 40s and 50s kids and my mum was a 60s teen, from Yorkshire. JS wasn't prominent figure on tv in my childhood but when he was mentioned in passing or occasionally popped up my mum made it clear she thought he was creepy/disgusting. As I got older this definition was expounded upon to include/mean pervy.

As a Yorkshire school girl, she'd heard round and about that he was handsy and a letch. My aunt was a few years older and provided more info. She was a physiotherapist with friends from training who worked all over the country. She'd heard about him from friends at Stoke Mandeville and Leeds. Mostly that he made everyone uneasy and was predatory, that you didn't leave nurses alone with him and supervised him with patients. She alluded more to him being a letch than a nonce, but his routine and lack of regard for personal space obviously made people uncomfortable and fear for others.

I don’t think much was spoken about the dangers of paedophilia - my DP’s didn’t talk about sex or anything like that. I remember being handed a pamphlet about periods by my extremely embarrassed DM when I had my first one, so to talk out loud about that kind of thing was rare (born in the 1960’s).
I’d watched him on TV and didn’t like him at all, but couldn’t articulate why. It wasn’t until I saw the film “Tommy” as a 16-year old that it clicked.
I then worked with a relative of his, who hated him and hinted that he was “unsavoury“ with a “nod, nod, wink, wink” sort of style.
So glad that things are more open now.

He abused anyone and everyone who was vulnerable,I don't think he had a preference ?

Yes they weren’t called paedophiles just ‘dirty old men’ if I remember rightly. My dad’s friends made sexual comments towards me and my sisters quite regularly, everyone found it funny ‘oh look she’s blushing!’. I dated a nearly 18 year old when I was 14 and nobody turned a hair, he came for dinner at our house and everything. And this was the early 2000s, not the 70s/80s!

I don't mind that it is a zombie thread in this case as there is still stuff to discuss. It's not as if the OP was asking whether to accept a wedding invitation last year.
I worked with people with Leeds connections in the early 2000s before his death. I remember a photoshopped red glittery "Jim Fixed it for me" medal being shared around. Except instead of Fixed it made reference to his activities (to put it delicately). Probably still exists with an easy Google.
Half the office were disbelieving but some were adamant that it was true.

I could never understand why Saville was so highly thought of for decades. He was so very strange. Deeply unattractive in every way but had such a high profile.
I was a child of the 70s and my Dad used to switch the TV off as soon as Saville appeared calling him "not that bloody weirdo" again!" Saville was very highly thought of at the BBC and don't forget we only had 3 TV stations during his heyday.

yes the word paedophile seems to be quite a newish word that appeared over here in the early 2000s before that I only ever remember them referred to as dirty old men or child molesters. The things that were acceptable back then were shocking. I always think of the film Rita,sue&Bob too which we all loved and thought was hilarious but it's actually shocking now as the girls were supposed to be school girls having sex with a man in his late 30s.

@Lorrymum the first presenter of TOTP and one of the earliest on radio 1 perhaps was where his reputation as a presenter came from. Then you have the BBC wanting young people watching tv, and when it came to ratings, often people sat down after tea/dinner, chose a channel and stuck with it, before the days of remote controls. Add in the BBC keeping things on well past their sell by date (they still do it- how many series of Call the Midwife, Death in Paradise have there been, and two more years of Mrs Browns Boys), and you can see why Jimmy Savile was on for years.

Not that for one second it excuses the cover ups by anyone in the BBC or West Yorskhire Police.

I could never understand why Saville was so highly thought of for decades. He was so very strange. Deeply unattractive in every way but had such a high profile.

Numerous modern day celebrities give very off vibes, but are highly thought of. And if you suggest that they may be creepy and inappropriate - then they have and army of fans and defenders.

Truthfully, most of of thought he was slimes and nasty but we also thought it didn't matter what we thought.

Slimey

Cyril Smith MP, Peter Morrison MP, Peter Righton (Home Office adviser & "child protection expert"), Philip Lyon (senior aide to Tony Blair) & many others.
https://metro.co.uk/2022/10/02/man-who-exposed-jimmy-savile-says-there-is-another-untouchable-paedophile-17487590/

MP's like Harriet Harman & Patricia Hewitt were leaders of the National Council for Civil Liberties, an organisation which supported the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE), even funding it for 3 years in the 1970's.
Amazing how rarely this horrible information comes to light, innit?
PIE's stated aim was to legalise adults having sex with under 16's.
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/paedophile-politicians-ones-got-away

Investigations are still ongoing, into the Savile/Smith time period & more recently, with some convictions, but a lot more focus on 'missing' evidence & named (not to the public) individuals whose connections have helped them avoid prosecution.

So it's easy to see how Savile had such free access to immensely senior public figures like Thatcher & then-Prince Charles. He had the dirt on all their cronies. Nobody could afford to challenge Savile, or the dirty secrets would come out - including the cover-ups, which would have implicated senior people whether they were personally invloved with child abuse or not. This has been a decades-long secret.