Friday 5 October 2012

Can Jim fix it?

The story now emerging of Jimmy Saville's life choices is both sad and disturbing.

I have to say that I never liked him even at his height but my children did. "Jim'll fix it" was required viewing every Saturday tea time. Long and earnest discussions were held regularly to find something he might be able to "Fix" for them. The dafter the idea the more likely it was to succeed.
At ten my daughter was both a talented young musician and very pretty. She wondered if Jim could fix it for her to play her flute with a large orchestra or on her own on the TV!

Letters were composed and thrown away. I am not sure any of them got through but she was never contacted... Thank God.

Today its impossible to imagine the power and the pull of this man. Or the cleverness. He had found the most successful way of attracting young people to him...he made their dreams come true! Of course they all wanted to be part of that.
He dressed up the whole thing by being philanthropic. Ran marathons, pushed a stretcher in the local hospital.....he designed the TV persona as a funny, do gooding hero! Of course he succeeded and no wonder the children he abused kept quiet...no doubt many thought it was their own fault, that is the tragedy of abuse.
Its easy to say  he BBC colluded in all this, someone must have known.  But we are talking idolatry here. The myth that he'd built around him fooled most people because people like me whilst inwardly squirming at his antics never imagined that he would actually abuse those girls.
The potent effect of a massive ego trip lasted until after his death. I sympathise with his family who can now see his legacy crumble.    But I ask them to try to remember those girls who at a tender age had their notions of love, romance and marriage completely shattered as well as the long term effect of physical abuse.
I really do thank God that Jim never fixed it for my daughter!  Or my son come to that!

3 comments:

Ray Barnes said...

One of the problems with the type of idolatry that is accorded these media giants is that they become unassailable.
I fear, even if the abused victims of this frankly revolting man had been able to find the courage to speak up, at the time, it is very unlikely that they would have been taken seriously.
Like you, I never liked him, found him grotesque and too flamboyant in every way, but then that may have just been me. I also disliked Charlie Drake Benny Hill, and the whole of the "Carry on" crowd.
One cannot help wondering if the 'good works' were deliberately cultivated as a cover as well as an opportunity to get close to those unfortunate youngsters he targeted.

UKViewer said...

I didn't particularly like Jimmy Saville, as a DJ he wasn't up to the standards of the likes of Alan Freeman and some others of that time. As a TV Personality it always seemed to me to be overhyped. I can remember his phase of doing wrestling for some arcane reason - I actually hoped that he got a thumping!

I would never have allowed my children to participate in anything that he was involved in - he wasn't really the type of person I wanted to have around them. I didn't know about all of his creepy behaviour or the alleged abuse until very recently.

I subsequently heard that he was good friends with Garry Glitter and Jonathon King, both convicted of child abuse.
I'm not sure of the company he kept, but it a DJ on Radio Kent, Dave Cash, who worked with him has retold his story this morning of being invited to a party with him and being told that there would be lots on girls there - he declined. He was and is a family man and didn't want to be part of that sort of thing. He acknowledged that there were rumours around about Jimmy Saville at the time, but says that as far as he knew they were just rumours - and to denounce him would have left anyone who did so, open to be sued for libel :(

So, he also appears to have used fear of the law to manipulate others who had a moral responsibility to put a stop to his activities.

A sad case and one that all parents need to pay attention to before they allow access to their children by so called celebrities.

Babs said...

We never did like Jimmy Saville . However Jim'll Fix it was for us at teatime compulsory viewing.
He did however train me to put on my seat belt with 'Clunk Click Every Trip.