In Plain Sight: The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile

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The late DJ and Jim’ll Fix It host is at the centre of a storm after claims of child abuse and inappropriate behaviour in an ITV documentary last night. It would be a few more years until we would comprehend just how unsettling this icon of TV really was. The Savile series featuring Steve Coogan as the disgraced star is doubly fascinating for me. The four, hour-long episodes depict the career and sexual offences of Jimmy Savile, who was one of the best-known radio and television personalities in Britain during his lifetime, and whose crimes emerged after his death. [9] Four real life survivors of Savile's abuse speak at the beginning and end of some of the episodes. [10] Each episode has scenes taking place in the last years of Savile's life, primarily where writer Dan Davies, who is researching Savile for his book, interviews him in various locations. No, I don't think we have. I think it just feels like inquiry after inquiry. We need to get to the bottom of why it happened. Why it was allowed to happen. Why people didn't feel that they could speak up, why they weren't believed when they did speak up, why they weren't listened to. If something good is to come out of this then, hopefully, that will be what it is."

In one example, Savile – who died last October aged 84 – describes an encounter with a young runaway from a remand home who was being hunted by the police. Carr, Flora (13 October 2021). "BBC drama boss defends new Jimmy Savile series starring Steve Coogan". Radio Times . Retrieved 30 December 2021. Pale golden hair she had," Savile described his mother, "perfectly natural, and was the envy of many ladies right the way until the time she pegged it." Waterson, Jim (26 September 2021). "Steve Coogan to play Jimmy Savile in 'sensitive' BBC drama". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved 1 June 2023. Cooke, Rachel (9 October 2023). "The BBC's Jimmy Savile drama is entirely gratuitous". New Statesman . Retrieved 10 October 2023.

If you’re afraid to read this book because you think it will contain a lot of graphic details of the sexual abuse of minors then rest assured – it doesn’t. The details of offences are kept to a minimum and there is no salaciousness in the reporting of them. In fact the book is all the more powerful because it doesn’t dwell on the details. It is a harrowing book to read because it paints an all too vivid picture of how celebrity rules and how too many of us are unwilling to challenge anyone in the public eye. Like many journalists, I'd leave the more difficult questions until the end of the interview, meaning I'd already have most of what I needed should things turn sour. Savile lived in a penthouse apartment at the top of a fairly nondescript tower overlooking Roundhay Park in Leeds. Reading this book made me realise how many signs were there that something untoward was happening and yet none of the allegations made to the police and others in a position to act on them were ever properly investigated. Nurses told patients to ‘pretend to be asleep’ and to forget about it and not make a fuss because ‘no one will believe you.’ Many knew of the rumours throughout Jimmy Savile’s long career and yet they were just accepted as something which happened and because it was JS nothing could ever be done about it because he had friends in high places and did so much for charity. Two or three minutes later, I heard voices coming from the lift shaft. The wooden doors slid open, releasing a cloud of smoke and two large, unsmiling men in their 50s. "Frisk him," barked Jimmy Savile, who had stepped out of the lift behind them and was wearing a blue shell suit with chevrons of red and white on the shoulders. Agnes Savile exerted an extraordinary hold over her seventh and youngest child. In his answer to my very first question, he described himself as “a not-again child”, because he was unplanned and, very possibly, unloved. His mother’s approval was of enormous significance to Savile, in life and, I believe, well beyond her death in 1972.

Is this not just hindsight talking? "Friends of mine would tell you they were bored of me going on about Jimmy Savile. They would all vouch for that." He became a journalist, and eventually an editor "got fed up with me banging on about him and told me to go and interview him". Born into poverty in Leeds in 1926, Jimmy Savile rose to become a knight of the realm, and a confidant of Margaret Thatcher, Princess Diana, and the Prince of Wales. Along the way, he invented the concept of the club DJ, gave the BBC two of its most iconic shows (Top of the Pops and Jim’ll Fix It) and pioneered the celebrity as charity worker and fund raiser. These achievements alone make for a fascinating read, however it is Savile’s prolific and serial abuse of young and frequently vulnerable people that beggars belief. Clearly what helped Savile to operate “In Plain Sight” was his celebrity status. It is easy to forget just how popular he was during the 1970s - and to a lesser extent in the decades before and after. Unlike many reviewers, I never remember thinking Savile was dodgy or creepy. A bit weird perhaps, but not in a dangerous way. I grew up with him on “Top of the Pops” - which he pretty much invented, and of course “Jim’ll Fix It”, a Saturday night staple on BBC1 along with The Generation Game. I can well imagine being 12, 13 or 14 and being in awe of him and also trusting him - as did so many young people who encountered him. He was well practiced in grooming kids, and when necessary their parents too.

By 1992, a decade after it started, more than 60 people had sat In the Psychiatrist's Chair, ranging from American tennis player Arthur Ashe to politician Edwina Currie, from film-maker Derek Jarman to pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy. I am also interviewed by 72 Films, a British production company commissioned by Netflix to make a two-part documentary about Savile. That is a hard decision. I don’t like talking publicly on this subject because it is painful even at my secondary level of exposure, and because some people seem to get jumpy when I do. Plain turf is all that marks Savile’s grave at Woodlands Cemetery in Scarborough. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images Twenty-five years later, I tell this to a retired high court judge posthumously investigating Savile. London flat , 1989 The production was announced in October 2020, [20] and was criticised before filming was under way. Richard Morrison, writing in The Times, stated that, as it was commissioned by the BBC, it felt "less an act of contrition than of exploitation." [21] Pragya Argawal, writing in The Independent, stated: