I'm going to be honest and say when we died I thought "Another of the old great ones has left us...:o
When I saw him running his marathans I thought good on him and just thought he was a loveable character. My Dad also loved him and laughed at his "quirky ways"...
I never heard any of the rumours and when he died and I first heard some ladies had sold their stories to the sun/mirror I thought here we go again, as sadly we do live in an age where things have been said to gain a quick buck- in a world of media obsession.
However after looking at the "facts" presented and watching Panarama and seeing people who worked in the BBC say they saw him coming out of caravans with young girls, I really dont see how this story cannot have truth to it.
Watching Jimmy Saville on Have I got News For You, saying he did anything he could get his hands on in his caravan gives me the absolute creeps. Did it at the time it was aired- No. I thought he was joking. The man hid behind the truth. Thats what the most frightening part is- it was all in front of us. The physchology he used was incredible to say the least.
Either way I don't sadly honestly see how this will ever be 100 per cent proven. If there was concrete evidence I think it would be in the press right now.
The people in the BBC/NHS who did nothing will have to live with this for the rest of their lives. Its beyond frightening that nothing was done to safeguard these children And perhaps just another reminder of the world we live in, where money does rule over morals/conscience.
In my very humble opinion, i think he did more good than bad, dont forget the 40 million pounds he raised. Thats a huge sum.
You know- the ironic thing is that he used the charity work as disguise and probably did save many lives with the money he gave to charity. But now these charities will probably close, people will loose their jobs, employees will be accused of knowing about his ways who genuinly did not. More importanly innocent children have also lost their childhoods in the process. People in his family and circle of friends who genuinly didnt know will be accused of knowing and perhaps targeted. The damage of the legacy of Jimmy Saville will have many repercussions for years and years to come.
Digest that and see if you feel a measley forty million was worth the devastation to so many innocent lives.....
Ps- Perhaps another lesson of the Jimmy Savile saga is never to 100 per cent trust how media portrays a character to you, who you actually know nothing about!
If you compare him to other male kiddies presenters of the day: John Craven/Tony Hart/Johnny Morris/Rolf Harris, there was always something warm, endearing and Dad/Grandad like about them- but not Jimmy Saville.
.
I think that's it for me I didn't get creepy off him until older and hearing about his interviews with Lous Theroux but to me he never had the warm avuncular vibe I got from people like those you've mentioned and Johnny Ball - whom as a child I had and still retain geunine affection for. JS always seemed like a show-off to me - although I'd place in the Saturday night entertainers bracket - in the 80s - none of these people I had much time for really (except possibly Larry Grayson) but none have proved to be as maelavent (sorry I know my spelling sucks) as Saville.
Jimmy Savile was praised by politicians Left, Right and Centre - literally - from Tony Blair to Margaret Thatcher. The Edward Heath story is one of the saddest, I think. All those disadvantaged kids getting sent on a trip to Southend... WITH JIMMY SAVILE! Unbelievable.
Hand on heart, no. I could never understand the appeal of him as a kid. I used to watch Jim'll Fix It regularly back in the day, and it was a bizarre sight. But at the same time you just sort of took it for granted, despite the fact he was clearly very odd.
Celebrities were seen very differently back then though, treated with far more deference by the public. It was a completely different kind of exposure, and with none of the media outlets we have today, no YouTube, no Internet forums, no platforms to dissect or dissent, and a mere four television channels. It was a lot easier to carefully project a certain type of personality, very easy to control the media, and very easy to keep a lid on things as a result.
It probably seems ludicrous to the younger posters, but anyone of a certain age on here, or anywhere, will remember that Saville was seen as the grand old dame of the BBC. He was A list untouchable. I mean, the chances of a permanently shell suited man witch in Ray Bans who talks absolute bollocks getting regular television work these days would be very slim, very different times with the great British public being more naive about their celebrities. Well, mainly because they could easily control the flow of information about themselves.
Ramble, ramble, but just giving some context about Saville when he was at his peak, if you will. He was on telly, and back then it felt like a really big deal for someone to be on the telly. I don't remember hearing about A list or C list then either. You didn't have that level of category. Celebs were celebs, so I suppose there was a perceived Halo effect about them.
Anyway, I never liked Saville as a kid, and I'm not sure what I'd describe it as at age eight, but at thirty four I'd say I found him implausible. I remember my Mum remarking once that she didn't know why he did Jim'll Fix It because "he obviously doesn't like children" (one for Alanis Morisette's lyric notepad). He could be profoundly odd on telly could Saville. But again, at that time everybody just took it for granted.
As time went on, and growing up as one does (nominally), and his tv work was ever more sporadic, the appearances got weirder and weirder. He was still dressing like charver's scarecrow, still waving his bastard cigars about, and churning out the same meaningless babbling bullshit he had been doing for years, but it was clear times had changed and he hadn't, still thinking he was big noise, albeit entirely in his own head.
As more and more of his actual personality was excavated, you could tell he wasn't merely eccentric but disturbed, and deeply unpleasant on many levels. But you could only tell this once you had access to him in a way that was simply unfathomable in the 70's and 80's. So no, I never liked him, but in the other hand you never really questioned him either. Almost all celebrities were like that, ye gods, when you think of the mediocrities that made money out if television back then, Mike Smith, Sarah Green (two unbelievable bastards), Cilla, Paul Daniels, Little and Large....good grief.
Aww Tony Hart - I was saddened when he died. I liked him as an artist and presenter. Always came across with warmth.
Funnily enough, I recall it was always Tony Hart who had the playground gossip-mongers twitching actually. Completely false, of course, but it demonstrates how pointless gossip really is :rolleyes:
I remember my Mum remarking once that she didn't know why he did Jim'll Fix It because "he obviously doesn't like children" (one for Alanis Morisette's lyric notepad). He could be profoundly odd on telly could Saville
Watch the clip below, between 5.50 and 6.00 minutes. After the little girl talks of wanting to meet a python after reading about one, the way Savile says, 'Is that so?' sounds like he's mimicking her high thin voice in a really scornful way.
Also, what do you reckon about the 'polishing the python' innuendo, on a show for young kids?
As a kid I thought he was irritating, as a teenager he made my skin crawl, I thought he was an arrogant shithouse and probably a nasty piece of work. Found him sinister. TBH I thought he was a degenerate.
Always felt he was deeply creepy and downright unpleasant, with no charisma and absolutely no rapport with children on his programme - I hated seeing him on TOTP and am finding the perpetual pictures of him in the media now (not the publicity about his victims, just the endless pictures of him) as nauseating...
:eek: Knew there was something deep and dark in his past, (heard rumours, and in interviews he came over as having a violent and threatening past around the nightclubs of Leeds), and thought it would all be unearthed when he died, and was a bit surprised that it took as long as it did for people to start to come forward.
Saw Louis Theroux's documentary and felt he was at least delusional, and found his relationship and obsession with his mother to be deeply disturbing, hinting at possible other personality disorders...
Not hindsight, but what I felt at the time - In the 1980's a young disabled colleague of mine was desperate to go on the show with him, I can't remember now what her wish was, and we were all made to watch the video footage at work afterwards. I felt he'd been patronising to her and had allowed her to come over as stupid, which she was not - I felt it was all very sleazy and nasty, so sorry for anyone who suffered at his and others' hands.
I've never seen anything with him in as I'm too young, but I have always been aware of him and who he is (and I think he appeared on an episode of Big Brother at some point?). But any time I had seen him I always found him creepy and never understood why and how he was so popular all those years ago.
I've never seen anything with him in as I'm too young, but I have always been aware of him and who he is (and I think he appeared on an episode of Big Brother at some point?). But any time I had seen him I always found him creepy and never understood why and how he was so popular all those years ago.
There is a generational difference here I think.
Savile wasn't particularly considered 'creepy' by the majority of viewers during the height of his fame. Strange, for sure, completely untalented and embarrassing for sure (for some -- myself included; like others I could never see why this old dinosaur was on TOTP when The Tube was taking things to new levels), but every generation has such 'stars' that are like that and it will doubtless continue to be the case.
The man's persona became progressively more nauseating as the years went on. It always baffled me that "Jim'll Fix It" went on for so long, and ISTR that it was close to being canned on a number of occasions in the late 1980s/early 1990s.
The rumours have been around for a long time, but for the vast majority of the time he was on TV regularly I don't think many really thought anything of it. It's not as if everyone was calling him a nonce in the 1970s...
Savile wasn't particularly considered 'creepy' by the majority of viewers during the height of his fame. Strange, for sure, completely untalented and embarrassing for sure (for some -- myself included; like others I could never see why this old dinosaur was on TOTP when The Tube was taking things to new levels), but every generation has such 'stars' that are like that and it will doubtless continue to be the case.
The man's persona became progressively more nauseating as the years went on. It always baffled me that "Jim'll Fix It" went on for so long, and ISTR that it was close to being canned on a number of occasions in the late 1980s/early 1990s.
The rumours have been around for a long time, but for the vast majority of the time he was on TV regularly I don't think many really thought anything of it. It's not as if everyone was calling him a nonce in the 1970s...
My grandad use to run in marathons and saw JS quite often on runs. He couldn't stand him and said he was false and creepy and the charity work was all a show and for his own self promotion.
He used to go on about everytime he came on the tv. He also reckoned he got drove about and only ran a few miles of each marathon but I don't know about that lol!
Hand on heart, no. I could never understand the appeal of him as a kid. I used to watch Jim'll Fix It regularly back in the day, and it was a bizarre sight. But at the same time you just sort of took it for granted, despite the fact he was clearly very odd.
Celebrities were seen very differently back then though, treated with far more deference by the public. It was a completely different kind of exposure, and with none of the media outlets we have today, no YouTube, no Internet forums, no platforms to dissect or dissent, and a mere four television channels. It was a lot easier to carefully project a certain type of personality, very easy to control the media, and very easy to keep a lid on things as a result.
It probably seems ludicrous to the younger posters, but anyone of a certain age on here, or anywhere, will remember that Saville was seen as the grand old dame of the BBC. He was A list untouchable. I mean, the chances of a permanently shell suited man witch in Ray Bans who talks absolute bollocks getting regular television work these days would be very slim, very different times with the great British public being more naive about their celebrities. Well, mainly because they could easily control the flow of information about themselves.
Ramble, ramble, but just giving some context about Saville when he was at his peak, if you will. He was on telly, and back then it felt like a really big deal for someone to be on the telly. I don't remember hearing about A list or C list then either. You didn't have that level of category. Celebs were celebs, so I suppose there was a perceived Halo effect about them.
Anyway, I never liked Saville as a kid, and I'm not sure what I'd describe it as at age eight, but at thirty four I'd say I found him implausible. I remember my Mum remarking once that she didn't know why he did Jim'll Fix It because "he obviously doesn't like children" (one for Alanis Morisette's lyric notepad). He could be profoundly odd on telly could Saville. But again, at that time everybody just took it for granted.
As time went on, and growing up as one does (nominally), and his tv work was ever more sporadic, the appearances got weirder and weirder. He was still dressing like charver's scarecrow, still waving his bastard cigars about, and churning out the same meaningless babbling bullshit he had been doing for years, but it was clear times had changed and he hadn't, still thinking he was big noise, albeit entirely in his own head.
As more and more of his actual personality was excavated, you could tell he wasn't merely eccentric but disturbed, and deeply unpleasant on many levels. But you could only tell this once you had access to him in a way that was simply unfathomable in the 70's and 80's. So no, I never liked him, but in the other hand you never really questioned him either. Almost all celebrities were like that, ye gods, when you think of the mediocrities that made money out if television back then, Mike Smith, Sarah Green (two unbelievable bastards), Cilla, Paul Daniels, Little and Large....good grief.
BIB : And Chris Tarrant. So many arrogant, and totally talentless people raking it in.
No OP you're not alone. I wrote into Jim to dance with Bonnie Langford (I know, embarrassing) encouraged into doing it by my mum. I remember saying to my Mum, if I have to go on it, do I have to sit on his knee because I really didn't want to....I think a child has a sixth sense about these things.
Just tagging on here to say that lots of people are claiming that they found him creepy. Well, I always thought Lord Longford looked creepy (mad looking, wispy hair; silly glasses; rubbery wet lips;hanging around child murderers) but that doesn't make him a pervert.
Today, I can't stand and don't understand the popularity of Jimmy Carr (odd face, currant eyes, nasty humourless expression) or Graham Norton (sounds strange, self-obsessed, toilet humour). Neither of these men make me smile at all, and I wonder why they are on television so often.
My point is that we can all look back and say with hindsight 'didn't he seem odd?' but there's no doubt that many presenters catch the public attention and are on our TVs all the time. You often read their biographies and they come across as rather nasty people with hidden secrets. Jimmy Savile's are unfortunately nastier than most but I really don't think his 'looks' should come into it.
Never liked JS, mainly I think that as a teen I found him ridiculously old to be doing what he was doing - presenting TOTP and the rest of it. In those days most of the radio 1 DJs seemed like old fogies to me.
Funny thing I remember, though, was once when I was criticising and ridiculing him, my dad told me off because of all the good work and he used to do, charity and voluntary stuff at the hospital etc etc. So, the the idea of "not valuing a book by its cover" was reinforced, which in its own way was a good thing (not being judgmental because people are eccentric or look different and so on).
I always thought it was a bit creepy how they encouraged young girls to swarm around the DJs on TOTP and other programmes. IMO Sexism is just as bad now if not worse - it just riffs in a slightly different way.
...and I don't just mean his totally opaque staring eyes or the fact that he gave me the creeps.
And now I know what it is - the big question. Why did the BBC never involve him in Children In Need - their biggest charity flagship and centred on children.
Well, now we know. Somebody has spoken out tonight and said the BBC were told never to let Saville near this event.
That is strange because at the time Savile would appear to be an idea candidate for him being heavily involved in Children In Need given his charity fund raising. Looking back now as someone not involved in the BBC one could understand why, but when this all took place with what the average "person in the street" knew at that time, one never gave this exclusion a second though. But it does appear there were some who were "aware" of him and his perverted antics.
With hindsight vision, a horrible detestable man
That is strange because at the time Savile would appear to be an idea candidate for him being heavily involved in Children In Need given his charity fund raising. Looking back now as someone not involved in the BBC one could understand why, but when this all took place with what the average "person in the street" knew at that time, one never gave this exclusion a second though. But it does appear there were some who were "aware" of him and his perverted antics
Exactly. I'm not claiming to be wise after the event but when I heard it on the news tonight, I thought, 'Of course. Why was the BBC's biggest charity fundraiser with a so-called affinity with kids, NEVER involved in Children In Need?' Did it never occurr to anyone?
Comments
When I saw him running his marathans I thought good on him and just thought he was a loveable character. My Dad also loved him and laughed at his "quirky ways"...
I never heard any of the rumours and when he died and I first heard some ladies had sold their stories to the sun/mirror I thought here we go again, as sadly we do live in an age where things have been said to gain a quick buck- in a world of media obsession.
However after looking at the "facts" presented and watching Panarama and seeing people who worked in the BBC say they saw him coming out of caravans with young girls, I really dont see how this story cannot have truth to it.
Watching Jimmy Saville on Have I got News For You, saying he did anything he could get his hands on in his caravan gives me the absolute creeps. Did it at the time it was aired- No. I thought he was joking. The man hid behind the truth. Thats what the most frightening part is- it was all in front of us. The physchology he used was incredible to say the least.
Either way I don't sadly honestly see how this will ever be 100 per cent proven. If there was concrete evidence I think it would be in the press right now.
The people in the BBC/NHS who did nothing will have to live with this for the rest of their lives. Its beyond frightening that nothing was done to safeguard these children
You know- the ironic thing is that he used the charity work as disguise and probably did save many lives with the money he gave to charity. But now these charities will probably close, people will loose their jobs, employees will be accused of knowing about his ways who genuinly did not. More importanly innocent children have also lost their childhoods in the process. People in his family and circle of friends who genuinly didnt know will be accused of knowing and perhaps targeted. The damage of the legacy of Jimmy Saville will have many repercussions for years and years to come.
Digest that and see if you feel a measley forty million was worth the devastation to so many innocent lives.....
Ps- Perhaps another lesson of the Jimmy Savile saga is never to 100 per cent trust how media portrays a character to you, who you actually know nothing about!
I think that's it for me I didn't get creepy off him until older and hearing about his interviews with Lous Theroux but to me he never had the warm avuncular vibe I got from people like those you've mentioned and Johnny Ball - whom as a child I had and still retain geunine affection for. JS always seemed like a show-off to me - although I'd place in the Saturday night entertainers bracket - in the 80s - none of these people I had much time for really (except possibly Larry Grayson) but none have proved to be as maelavent (sorry I know my spelling sucks) as Saville.
Jimmy Savile was praised by politicians Left, Right and Centre - literally - from Tony Blair to Margaret Thatcher. The Edward Heath story is one of the saddest, I think. All those disadvantaged kids getting sent on a trip to Southend... WITH JIMMY SAVILE! Unbelievable.
Celebrities were seen very differently back then though, treated with far more deference by the public. It was a completely different kind of exposure, and with none of the media outlets we have today, no YouTube, no Internet forums, no platforms to dissect or dissent, and a mere four television channels. It was a lot easier to carefully project a certain type of personality, very easy to control the media, and very easy to keep a lid on things as a result.
It probably seems ludicrous to the younger posters, but anyone of a certain age on here, or anywhere, will remember that Saville was seen as the grand old dame of the BBC. He was A list untouchable. I mean, the chances of a permanently shell suited man witch in Ray Bans who talks absolute bollocks getting regular television work these days would be very slim, very different times with the great British public being more naive about their celebrities. Well, mainly because they could easily control the flow of information about themselves.
Ramble, ramble, but just giving some context about Saville when he was at his peak, if you will. He was on telly, and back then it felt like a really big deal for someone to be on the telly. I don't remember hearing about A list or C list then either. You didn't have that level of category. Celebs were celebs, so I suppose there was a perceived Halo effect about them.
Anyway, I never liked Saville as a kid, and I'm not sure what I'd describe it as at age eight, but at thirty four I'd say I found him implausible. I remember my Mum remarking once that she didn't know why he did Jim'll Fix It because "he obviously doesn't like children" (one for Alanis Morisette's lyric notepad). He could be profoundly odd on telly could Saville. But again, at that time everybody just took it for granted.
As time went on, and growing up as one does (nominally), and his tv work was ever more sporadic, the appearances got weirder and weirder. He was still dressing like charver's scarecrow, still waving his bastard cigars about, and churning out the same meaningless babbling bullshit he had been doing for years, but it was clear times had changed and he hadn't, still thinking he was big noise, albeit entirely in his own head.
As more and more of his actual personality was excavated, you could tell he wasn't merely eccentric but disturbed, and deeply unpleasant on many levels. But you could only tell this once you had access to him in a way that was simply unfathomable in the 70's and 80's. So no, I never liked him, but in the other hand you never really questioned him either. Almost all celebrities were like that, ye gods, when you think of the mediocrities that made money out if television back then, Mike Smith, Sarah Green (two unbelievable bastards), Cilla, Paul Daniels, Little and Large....good grief.
Hmmm. John Peel "not cutting edge".
Funnily enough, I recall it was always Tony Hart who had the playground gossip-mongers twitching actually. Completely false, of course, but it demonstrates how pointless gossip really is :rolleyes:
Watch the clip below, between 5.50 and 6.00 minutes. After the little girl talks of wanting to meet a python after reading about one, the way Savile says, 'Is that so?' sounds like he's mimicking her high thin voice in a really scornful way.
Also, what do you reckon about the 'polishing the python' innuendo, on a show for young kids?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K36bnoIjeBw&feature=youtu.be&t=5m55s
:eek: Knew there was something deep and dark in his past, (heard rumours, and in interviews he came over as having a violent and threatening past around the nightclubs of Leeds), and thought it would all be unearthed when he died, and was a bit surprised that it took as long as it did for people to start to come forward.
Saw Louis Theroux's documentary and felt he was at least delusional, and found his relationship and obsession with his mother to be deeply disturbing, hinting at possible other personality disorders...
Not hindsight, but what I felt at the time - In the 1980's a young disabled colleague of mine was desperate to go on the show with him, I can't remember now what her wish was, and we were all made to watch the video footage at work afterwards. I felt he'd been patronising to her and had allowed her to come over as stupid, which she was not - I felt it was all very sleazy and nasty, so sorry for anyone who suffered at his and others' hands.
There is a generational difference here I think.
Savile wasn't particularly considered 'creepy' by the majority of viewers during the height of his fame. Strange, for sure, completely untalented and embarrassing for sure (for some -- myself included; like others I could never see why this old dinosaur was on TOTP when The Tube was taking things to new levels), but every generation has such 'stars' that are like that and it will doubtless continue to be the case.
The man's persona became progressively more nauseating as the years went on. It always baffled me that "Jim'll Fix It" went on for so long, and ISTR that it was close to being canned on a number of occasions in the late 1980s/early 1990s.
The rumours have been around for a long time, but for the vast majority of the time he was on TV regularly I don't think many really thought anything of it. It's not as if everyone was calling him a nonce in the 1970s...
Well said and perfectly true.
He used to go on about everytime he came on the tv. He also reckoned he got drove about and only ran a few miles of each marathon but I don't know about that lol!
BIB : And Chris Tarrant. So many arrogant, and totally talentless people raking it in.
Remember Christ Tarrant used to do a Jimmy Savile-style skit, on Tizwaz, called, Chris'll Crack It?
Did he? I don't remember that! I had the misfortune to meet Tarrant though, what an arrogant individual he was, utterly egocentric. And still is.
I've heard his ex-wife, Ingrid's, pretty unpleasant, too.
I don't really know her, is she 'famous' in her own right or merely living in reflected glory?
She's divorced from Tarrant now.
Friend of mine worked with her once and described her as 'difficult'.
Oh ok. Isn't he with someone else now? Someone much younger - aren't they always!
Today, I can't stand and don't understand the popularity of Jimmy Carr (odd face, currant eyes, nasty humourless expression) or Graham Norton (sounds strange, self-obsessed, toilet humour). Neither of these men make me smile at all, and I wonder why they are on television so often.
My point is that we can all look back and say with hindsight 'didn't he seem odd?' but there's no doubt that many presenters catch the public attention and are on our TVs all the time. You often read their biographies and they come across as rather nasty people with hidden secrets. Jimmy Savile's are unfortunately nastier than most but I really don't think his 'looks' should come into it.
Funny thing I remember, though, was once when I was criticising and ridiculing him, my dad told me off because of all the good work and he used to do, charity and voluntary stuff at the hospital etc etc. So, the the idea of "not valuing a book by its cover" was reinforced, which in its own way was a good thing (not being judgmental because people are eccentric or look different and so on).
I always thought it was a bit creepy how they encouraged young girls to swarm around the DJs on TOTP and other programmes. IMO Sexism is just as bad now if not worse - it just riffs in a slightly different way.
And now I know what it is - the big question. Why did the BBC never involve him in Children In Need - their biggest charity flagship and centred on children.
Well, now we know. Somebody has spoken out tonight and said the BBC were told never to let Saville near this event.
Okay, who now thinks they didn't know?
With hindsight vision, a horrible detestable man
Exactly. I'm not claiming to be wise after the event but when I heard it on the news tonight, I thought, 'Of course. Why was the BBC's biggest charity fundraiser with a so-called affinity with kids, NEVER involved in Children In Need?' Did it never occurr to anyone?