John Peel

A. Marrying a 15 year old is not paedophilia or sexual abuse, particularly in a place where it is legal. You may find it a bit pervy for a man in his 20s but that’s not the same thing. Savile was a rapist and an arch-manipulator of vulnerable people.

getting BJ’s off underage girls on the basis of accent and position and ‘defending’ it with ‘of course I didn’t ask for ID’ isn’t legal though, and while i’d also argue it’s a different thing entirely to Savile, and also if you want to split hairs, not paedophilia either (no suggestion these girls were anything other than mature) it does make me look slightly askew at the way he’s still seen in such a revered way.

Brilliant, in his way, but also very flawed.

The Burchill piece is worth reading, and not just for the take down of Peel though it does that alright:

Peel told the Guardian in 1975. “Girls,” he said to the Sunday Correspondent in 1989, “used to queue up outside oral sex they were particularly keen on, I remember one of my regular customers, as it were, turned out to be 13, though she looked older.”

This was the Sixties. Fleeing America after the authorities quite rightly objected to him having sex with young teenage girls, Peel was joined by his wife, Shirley, a Texan girl, who was 15 when he married her.

Talking to the Correspondent about this young woman, now dead by her own hand, Peel seems strangely censorious: “She fell in with some extremely dodgy people she married three more times after me, and I was the only husband by whom she didn’t have a child.

All the children were in care. She did some terrible things, you know. She didn’t deserve to die, though.” Somebody give that man a medal!

Scratch a hippie and find a sexist – well into the Seventies, Peel was drooling on about “schoolgirls”, in print and on air, where his Schoolgirl Of The Year competition was quietly laid to rest during punk’s tenure.

…thought his show was brilliant when I was 15. Formative ffs. But Jesus Christ, Home Truths… 😡 (the R4 show)

I have very mixed feelings about John Peel. Like others he was very influenial in introducing me new music (some tosh, some brilliant) during my teenage years and into university. I have a pretty eclectic taste in music and yu can draw a line back to listening to his show to thank for that.
His legacy was tainted for me though by finding out some of his predilections for girls under 16 after he passed. Regardless of legality, or that the underage girls/groupies offered themselves or if others in the public eyewere doing it, it doesn’t make it right or morally acceptable.
If others on here are willing to look past that, then that’s their right, but i can’t

Never been a fan the music he played was a complete mess, I never understood the hype. Then chuck in the young girls thing and it really doesn’t paint a good picture.

The Burchill piece is worth reading

Too much bile for me – It seemed she hated him because he played Indie music and she like Soul Music, dressed up as him only liking “White Music” and the bile spews from there. Her piece is full of unsubstantiated half-truths and designed to be as inflammatory as anything Katie Hopkins would squat out.

His Home Truths show on Radio 4 was brilliant.

Personal life of no interest. his taste for child sex. is almost libel ffs. Removed my link to the Borland docu for that bollocks. Read Pigface’s link – there was 1 15 yo groupie. Same old bores bring it up everytime his name is mentioned. Doesn’t make any difference to his legacy of contribution to the music industry to me.

Totally agree with this. The groupie thing was one flippant comment that someone picked up on….albeit a very stupid comment. Also his American wife lied to him about her age.

Too much bile for me – It seemed she hated him because he played Indie music and she like Soul Music, dressed up as him only liking “White Music” and the bile spews from there. Her piece is full of unsubstantiated half-truths and designed to be as inflammatory as anything Katie Hopkins would squat out

The thesis behind the bile is that the middle aged Home Truths safe happy families blight to Saturday morning garbage, and the ho ho ho sexy young girls opportunism are points on the same graph. Whatever, it was an effective counter to attempted cannonisation which, judging by the balance of comments on this thread, ain’t going to happen.

Same old bores bring it up everytime his name is mentioned.

If you want to pretend that he didn’t have a taste for sex with underage girls, that’s up to you.

Selective quoting. Works every time. Cheers.

Selective quoting. Works every time. Cheers.

When faced with the evidence that someone we admire is in some important ways not very admirable, we have a choice. We can choose to modify our view of that person, or we can choose to disregard/ play down the evidence.

I chose the former.

Read Pigface’s link – there was 1 15 yo groupie.

Well, to be fair, there were two 15-year-olds and a queue of 13-year-olds offering oral sex whose I.D.’s he didn’t ask for, as he admits… Plus there’s his remarkably callous comments regarding the post-relationship life that befell his first wife which seemed to be an attempt to blame her for his alleged unknowing involvement.

Of course, like you, I’m appreciative of his contribution to the musical culture. Not only did he introduce me to the new energy of punk via The Sex Pistols when my life was at a particularly low-ebb dead end and kickstart my musical career, but he subsequently helped promote my own band in the immediate post-punk era on national radio.

Hence my conflict… 😐

How do you separate the man from his actions, given they are wholly linked?
Certainly I feel conflicted when thinking about him. Like others his evening shows introduced me to some band which I still listen to today, although I NEVER got his love for The Fall.
I struggle to see beyond his somewhat shady past proclivities. Its a shame really.

Never knew he was a nonce. Everyday’s a school day, just as John would have wanted…

Canny say he influenced my musical tastes in the slightest. outside listening to and taping the the top 40 when I was very young I’ve never been a radio listener mind.

I’m surprised people have never heard of the allegations against him either.

I suppose the way I look at it… that he helped me and gave me a lot of pleasure for many years with the music he played and introduced me to.
Those years aren’t removed by the fact that he was a perve. All that still remains in my memories and in the record collection in my house. Can’t be erased by stuff I read about him, can it? I suspect The Pig, Tom etc, all still love him as a father/husband etc. they’re not going to dismiss everthing he did for them are they?
I can totally understand anyone who didn’t listen to him or appreciate what he did feeling a different way to me. Obviously makes them much better people.
Groupies were a fact of life in the 60s and 70s, there’s no getting away from it – how many rock bands we all listen to indulged in under-age groupies? I can separate the artist/celeb whatever from their deeds. Even Gary Glitter, got no qualms listening to a record, depsite the man being a total scumbag. Jimmy Savile? Never liked him, nothing to admire, so that ones simple innit.