That Netflix Jimmy Saville Documentary

To the casual outside observer the UK looks like a nation of oddball village idiots governed by an arrogant and aloof elite.

Sounds pretty accurate.

It’s hardly just a UK problem. Watch the documentary about Gillain Maxwell and see how Epstein got away with much the same in Palm Beach, Florida for years with absolute impunity for much the same reasons. He was part of ‘The Establishment’ so blind eyes were turned across the board, and when he was eventually collared things mysteriously just ‘went away’

Hopefully its better than the Madeleine McCann one Netflix did, what a shower of crap that was. A whitewash and totally biased towards protecting the parents. Jaw dropping that it left out some key stuff in a desperate attempt to make the parents look innocent. So based on that garbage I don’t hold out much hope for this one.

. I don’t believe anyone actually thought he was a paedophile predator who was raping young girls the whole time.

The documentary mentions both SMH and the church, including reports from staff, patients and victims who all tried to report it. But no, not Jimmy he does a lot for a charity.

It’s hardly just a UK problem. Watch the documentary about Gillain Maxwell and see how Epstein got away with much the same in Palm Beach, Florida for years with absolute impunity for much the same reasons. He was part of ‘The Establishment’ so blind eyes were turned across the board, and when he was eventually collared things mysteriously just ‘went away’

It’s hard to conceive that Savile was in such a position of influence as to act as an
intermediary between Royals…

Surprised further questions have yet to be asked about his dealings with Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson

Beginning to look like Andrew's best defence is to lay the blame on Jimmy Savile… https://t.co/mLRGEzCBuM pic.twitter.com/knIlWgIFgd

— Tom Young (@OldTomYoung) January 26, 2022

The benefit of hindsight is used a lot in the world today, without often taking true learning but using it to blame.

One thing that has never made it out really was that he had a key to the mortuary at LGI and would visit at night.

People raised concerns but they went unheard because of his status and because people dont do that kind of thing…

One thing that has never made it out really was that he had a key to the mortuary at LGI and would visit at night.

He worked as a porter, he on a few tapes saying he liked to help out moving people around the hospital. He’d have a key being a porter.

To the casual outside observer the UK looks like a nation of oddball village idiots governed by an arrogant and aloof elite.

The BBC documentary about Mary Whitehouse is worth a watch in this respect. The section in the 2nd episode about paedophiles is pretty astonishing (viewing it with 2022 values) and may help explaining some of what happened with Saville.

I can’t google for more info, because I’m in work, but the programme talked about pro-paedophile advocacy in the 70s.

He worked as a porter, he on a few tapes saying he liked to help out moving people around the hospital. He’d have a key being a porter.

Nope a mortuary is always a request to get in thing, and porters do not need access to the mortuary (bit where the bodies are stored) over night.

It wasnt to drop bodies off

@creakingdoor

As a kid I attended the church at SMH, where the Spinal Unit is in which he had a ‘personal room’, and he was a frequent visitor to Mass (the church service). He would come in a few minutes into the service and stand in the doorway of the priest’s office at the back;

When you do watch it, you may find you know one of the contributors…

It’s horrific.

In hindsight, the Louis Theroux doc was a totally damp squib. Despite all the time and all the access to Jimmy, Louis failed to extract anything of substance at all. The output just reinforced that he was a bit creepy, but nothing more. I guess he was trying to make 2 hours of interesting TV rather than expose a monster.

But that gives some clue as to the skills (‘tricksy-ness’) Jimmy had in obfuscation and diversion. He was incredibly well honed at hiding in plain sight. ‘My case comes up next Thursday…’

Not an easy watch but decently thought provoking and not sensationalist.

The section in the 2nd episode about paedophiles is pretty astonishing (viewing it with 2022 values)

This lot. Pretty shocking to the majority of people even during the 1970’s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paedophile_Information_Exchange

Nope a mortuary is always a request to get in thing, and porters do not need access to the mortuary (bit where the bodies are stored) over night.

It wasnt to drop bodies off

That’s very odd as it was always the porters who transported to mortuary in the hospitals up here and them who opened the door for us. On night shift they’re are very few porters even in a big hospital. They had a key for those who croaked during the night.

It’s a story that has been around for years, even before he died.

Genuinely used to think the paedophile information exchange was ABOUT nonces, not fo the use of. My gob was smacked when I found out.

I can’t google for more info, because I’m in work, but the programme talked about pro-paedophile advocacy in the 70s.

Not just in the UK.

Mary Whitehouse was always a bit of a laughing stock back in the day but she raised a lot of concerns that with hindsight, maybe should have been given more credence.

It’s amazing how so many normal people have had him down as creepy as **** even at the height of his crimes sad to now know how many of the elite never spotted the obvious or never chose to see them

As other have said above, he didn’t have nearly everyone fooled. As a teenager in the 80’s it was pretty well known amongst my generation. No evidence obviously but we just knew.

… and many others.

It’s easy to nod knowingly in hindsight, and there are always ‘rumours’ about anyone who was a little eccentric. Hands up whose high school had a male teacher who was a kiddie fiddler and a female teacher who was a lesbian that liked to watch girls in the showers? Anyone not with their hand up?

Bollocks. We didn’t know, not really. Savile was a bit weird – hell, he was a lot weird – but as others have said he was a master at hiding in plain sight. Now then now then come and talk to Uncle Jimmy, at number one it’s the Pet Shop Boys, jingle jangle jewellery, totally not phallic cigar, run a marathon all for charity, dinner on the Revolution, big armchair, have a badge. That was Savile, most everyone on the outside looking in loved him. We didn’t know any more than we “knew” about anyone else who was slightly eccentric, a stopped clock is right twice a day.

What is way more amazing to my mind is that there were people, plenty of people, who did know and said nothing. Did nothing. So many people who were complicit because, what, they were scared for their own sakes? Because it was somehow more acceptable in the 70s? Because – here’s the kicker – they wouldn’t have been taken seriously?

Your granny’s dog-sitter’s hairdresser who “always said he was a wrong un,” get in the sea, she probably said the same about darkies. Those who did know him however, those who had interacted with him… there’s probably a lesson to be learned here.

He worked as a porter, he on a few tapes saying he liked to help out moving people around the hospital. He’d have a key being a porter.

Nope a mortuary is always a request to get in thing, and porters do not need access to the mortuary (bit where the bodies are stored) over night.

I worked in a large London hospital in the late 80s, in a cancer research dept. One afternoon, my friend and colleague needed to have a chat with a friend of his who worked in the morgue. We wandered off down there and walked straight in, no security passes or codes needed. I wonder if there were different security requirements for teaching hospital’s morgue compared to a ‘standard’ morgue?

Coincidentally enough, while I was working in that job, Saville said hello to me as he ran past me, one winter’s evening on Blackfriars Bridge.

Pretty shocking to the majority of people even during the 1970’s.

Probably, but you wouldn’t see paedophiles on TV these days asking for public tolerance.

We didn’t know, not really. Savile was a bit weird – hell, he was a lot weird

This is the thing I don’t get about the whole thing – how did he achieve such fame, when he was clearly really **** weird? I didn’t want to see him on TV, or care what he thought. Perhaps his generation thought he was still relevant, but it always felt really jarring when he was on TV, especially stuff that was supposed to be trendy (E.g. TOTP). Why is this creepy uncle on here?

Also, since ‘everyone knew’ the rumours, why on earth were people happy to be seen with him and endorse him? I hadn’t realised (until watching the Netflix documentary) that he had Margaret Thatcher, Princess Di, Charles, Edwina Currie et al basically in his pocket. Why didn’t they just maintain a steady distance? Actually, my theory on this is that these people were so out-of-touch with ‘the common man’ that they thought he was a typical salt-of-the-earth kind of chap and just didn’t have the nouse to see that he was, again, really **** weird.

This is the thing I don’t get about the whole thing – how did he achieve such fame, when he was clearly really **** weird?

Because he was just weird a bit eccentric.

I wonder if there were different security requirements for teaching hospital’s morgue compared to a ‘standard’ morgue?

Not sure but as you mentioned not every morgue were locked at one time. I mean even wards are now but porters have keys (passes) to those.

We didn’t know, not really. Savile was a bit weird – hell, he was a lot weird – but as others have said he was a master at hiding in plain sight

And using his celeb status to cover up for him. A lot of them did that. Celebs back then were like royalty (not like the any-old-****-who-gets-on-telly-or-youtube celebs we have now) and had a certain power and mystery. But that Louis Theroux doc you mentioned earlier, when it came out it was .. can Louis make him confess? He certainly tried.
I remember a story about Gary Glitter and Dave off of Slade – one of them (I think it was actually Dave!) bought a house next to a girls’ school so they could pick up, well, girls, easier. Somehow Dave’s never been implicated in Yewtree, like many other 70s rockers who got up to this stuff.
None quite as vile as Savile, obviously.

Why didn’t they just maintain a steady distance?

Prince Charles, for one kept in touch as he believed Saville could keep him touch with the “average Joe” and had an understanding of the”common man” Which if nothing else just goes to show how out of touch the Royals are I guess.

Is it not simply that he brought a lot of money and profile and hence money.
Jimmy is fundraising for us again. Brilliant just don’t leave him alone with the kids or bodies.

Express from 2011 reckons he raised £45million.

A lot of people will get forgetful for that sort of money when they’re short for the bills and papers are asking why.

Made me think of Boris Johnson – if a person who hasn’t seen the entire evolution parachuted in to Britain they’d be puzzled as to how this creepy old man/totally dishonest charlatan had managed to hoodwink the population and persuade them to deny the evidence of their own eyes.

It’s easy to nod knowingly in hindsight, and there are always ‘rumours’ about anyone who was a little eccentric.

Not really hindsight if we were saying it in the early 80’s is it. And yes rumours, but no smoke without fire. And if those rumours come from people from the places he has frequented they may have a bit more truth to them.

This is the thing I don’t get about the whole thing – how did he achieve such fame, when he was clearly really **** weird? I didn’t want to see him on TV, or care what he thought. Perhaps his generation thought he was still relevant, but it always felt really jarring when he was on TV, especially stuff that was supposed to be trendy (E.g. TOTP).

Saville was presenting TOTP from it’s inception in 64, it seems. Was he that odd at the start, or did he become odder as he became an institution? (I’m guessing the latter.) When TOTP started he was on Radio Luxembourg, which I understand was seen as a bit alternative. (It’s before my time..) And having old presenters for kids TV wasn’t unusual – John Noakes was well into his 40s by the time I was aware of Blue Peter, for instance.

By the time most of us were watching TOTP, yes, he was an overly old man on a kids TV programme, but I guess that still happens and we don’t notice because those presenters were young when we were young.

The world was full of larger-than-life media-hyped stars who were often a bit weird and drove Rollses in the seventies. Think about the people Saville was presenting on TOTP. We had Slade with lyrics full of inuendo and Dave Hill enjoying a nightout in LA with Maddie Maddox. Which brings us to Jimmy Page and Led Zep with honey drip lyrics that didn’t even bother with inuendo. Glitter was, well Glitter and Bowie stoked bisexual rumours. TV was as in-your-face as they could make it with tactile hosts such as Bob Monkhouse, Bruce Forsythe and yes, Jimmy Saville. In the time I watched the guy on TV (the seventies) I just thought of him as an over-top and crappy showman, harmless but irritating like many of the TV personalities of the day. We didn’t know that behind the scenes he went beyond the touncy feely person he was in front of the cameras.

Then there was the context, we were being fed some properly sexist stereotyping back then and the groupie was very much a thing. You couldn’t pick of a red top or even specialist music paper without pics and texts to show young women throwing themselves at men. Hugh Hefner was always surrounded by bimbos that seemed to have no other reason to be there than look sexy and one assumed be sexy.

Beatle mania, the Who playing to venues sticking of piss because of the mainly female audience relieving themselves in excitement. It was the narrative and reality of the day.
Young females being attracted to stars and the stars not saying no wasn’t treated as scansdalous by the media, more titilating anecdote. Saville went further, that we didn’t know.

In the 50s and 60s the US the justice system took interest, Chuck Berry did time, Jerry Lee Lewis was given a hard time but got married all the same. By the 70s the LA groupies and their lovers were left to get on with it.

The media, including the BBC were head in the sand or complicit, after all, there’s no such thing as bad publicity and it sold newspapers.

And I almost forgot Benny Hill

And I almost forgot Benny Hill

And Carol Cleveland was “The Monty Python woman” who’s role was mostly to appear either topless or as a set dressing.

Beatle mania, the Who

Rolling stones were pretty open about it as well

https://www.google.com/search?q=stray+cat+blues+lyrics&oq=stray+cat+blues&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j46i67j0i512l5j46i512.3990j0j7&client=ms-android-motorola-rev2&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Mainstream TV:

Watching now – just shows you how complicit many were in what went on, including rock stars….

Shocking.

Just watching the bit with him and Garry Glitter.

****ING HELL!!!

Basically nodding and winking to each other, on camera, about their shared perversion

Unbelievable!

Creepiest Batman villain yet. ‘The Fiddler’

Just watching the bit with him and Garry Glitter.

****ING HELL!!!

Yep, I think what makes this an ‘interesting’ watch is the fact that a lot of it is told in his own words and he wasn’t hiding it.

I think people took it as his patter but not lying means you don’t get caught out and there never was a ‘smoking’ gun unlike Glitter and his laptop which leads nicely to the part that friends reunited played when people were recounting the unhappy experiences of him.

Watching now – just shows you how complicit many were in what went on, including rock stars….

Shocking.

TBH at that time it was always fame fortune and the copious amounts of sex that came with it :-), a few probably didn’t realise his predatory nature for under age victims.

He was also seriously charismatic and unless you’ve been around people like that you won’t believe how other people will defend and almost refuse to accept anything negative about that person.

Page three and 16 year old semi-nude “stunners”.
If your skirt was short public consensus was you were asking for it if sexually assaulted (victim blaming).
Children generally considered unreliable narrators.
A general narrative that people (men) who do public work must be supported and their peccadillos ignored.
People knew at Stoke Mandeville they also didn’t have the support of their seniors to look deeper and/ or wouldn’t be believed. Same at the BBC. Private Eye has years of excellent coverage as they do on Cyril Smith.

…anyone remember the Sun doing a countdown to Samantha Fox turning 16 so they could run topless pics? Some guys get off on that stuff, and they assume it’s most guys though it’s really not. Bill Wyman and the 13 year old Mandy Smith? Polanski ffs?

But actually whilst we’re on radio 1 icons in plan sight, what about John Peel? With his 13 year old ‘girlfriends’ and 15 year old wife http://andywalmsley.blogspot.com/2014/10/peel-reveals.html?m=1

just another point

my theory on this is that these people were so out-of-touch with ‘the common man’ that they thought he was a typical salt-of-the-earth kind of chap

fwiw he’s close to a certain Leeds (as opposed to yorkshire) archetype of a hard faced guy you can’t always tell is joking and you don’t know what he’ll say next, other than it’ll be a sharp little question to keep you off balance. You see a lot of faces like that round leeds market.

the Sun doing a countdown to Samantha Fox turning 16

Chris moyles did the countdown to Charlotte church being “legal” 🙄

It’s interesting how things become facts in some peoples minds, that are twists on what the actual truth is.

the Sun doing a countdown to Samantha Fox turning 16

It was the Daily Star and the girl was Natalie Banus. This was when the the Star was owned/managed by Sullivan and Gold. The reason I remember this is that Ben Elton did a rant about it in his stand up, regarding Dante’s levels of hell.

Sam Fox did pose topless when 16 in The Sun, but there was no countdown.

Chris moyles did the countdown to Charlotte church being “legal”

Absolute bollox. Chris Moyles may be a complete **** but that’s not true.

https://graunwatch.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/the-truth-about-that-charlotte-church-countdown-clock-guest-post-by-heresy-corner/

may have not counted down, but I do remember there was a lot of media interest in her turning 16, then getting papped and upskirted at 18

Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles has run into trouble with broadcasting watchdogs for offering to take teenage singing star Charlotte Church’s virginity.

Moyles made a string of on-air remarks about the teenager on the day she turned 16.

They included telling listeners to his afternoon show that he wanted to “lead her through the forest of sexuality now that she had reached 16”.

It was the Daily Star and the girl was Natalie Banus.

Not my specialist subject and I defer to m’learned colleague 🙂

(Fox was 16 though which is is creepy enough?)