Seven years after writing this post I look back and realise that I was duped by Savile like everybody else. It turns out that he was a fraud, a pervert and a paedophile who used his position and his eccentric veneer to prey upon others. It is a pity that the truth of his life did not come out before he died... July 20th 2018
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I guess that overseas visitors to this blog may never have even heard of Jimmy Savile. In my view, he was a very special man whose funeral is taking place in the city of Leeds even as I write these words.
Most British people will remember him as a flamboyant disc jockey - the first and last presenter of our iconic TV music programme - "Top of the Pops" but he was more than that, much more.
These are some of the things that Jimmy Savile was: a Yorkshireman, a coal miner, a professional wrestler, a marathon runner, a loyal friend, a proud uncle, a radio presenter, a TV quiz show host, a hospital porter at the Leeds General Infirmary, a counsellor to psychotic murderers in Broadmoor, a massive fund raiser for the spinal injuries unit at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, an honorary member of the Royal Marines, a member of MENSA, a lifelong committed Christian, a smoker of big fat Cuban cigars, a generous sponsor of university medical students in Leeds, a nightclub entrepreneur... The list is almost endless. It would be difficult to calculate the millions of pounds that he raised for a range of charities.
I am proud to say that I met him when I was sixteen - at a gathering for the National Association of Youth Clubs in St James's Palace, London. Typically, this was another organisation that Jimmy supported though I should point out that the palace wasn't named after him! He was real eccentric, a showman, a "one off" but underneath it all he had a heart of gold. No wonder the people of Leeds are lining the streets in his honour at this very minute.
Owzabout that then?
In the first photo (but not the second), Jimmy looks to these American eyes like a very old, decrepit, pale Prince Charles. I guess the adjectives are superfluous.
ReplyDeleteYou forgot to say that he was a Tory. Just thought I'd mention it.
ReplyDeleteRHYMES Superfluous indeed.
ReplyDeleteSHOOTING PARROTS I think that you are also conservative with a small "c" and so am I. Yes he was attracted to Thatcher. The love child they had together is called Boris Johnson. Jimmy was never a card-carrying Tory but point taken. We all have our faults.
I first met Jimmy when I was a kid in Wharfedale Childrens Hospital. I spent three years there, it was a cross between hospital and boarding school, surrounded by chainlink fence with barbed wire topping. We inmates called it Stalag Luft III.
ReplyDeleteIt wasnn't a nice place. But Jimmy Savile occasionally bounced in, btinging us entertainment, music, and his larger-than-life self.
Years later, I'd bump into him often, at Dunny's Caff, by the river in otley, a no-nonsense biker and working boots sort of place. We'd exchange nods, and comment on the weather. Everybody or mostly everybody, respected his privacy, he'd be in stealth mode, a big woolly hat covering his head...
I never got to thank him for caring about poorly kids in a forgotten backwater.
As for Jim's political thoughts? He never gave himself up to be a political stooge, unlike many I could think of.
ReplyDeleteI know one of his very good friends was a communist.
If he was a tory, then he was also a man who raised, so it's said, over £46 million for charities and gave large amounts of his time, throughout all of his life, to help those worse-off than him. Unlike, for instance, Millionaire Blair.