Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

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Re: Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

Postby semper occultus » Tue Jul 01, 2014 5:23 pm

the civil servant was Cliff Graham

The Broadmoor taskforce, which replaced the previous suspended management, was set up in August 1988.
The Earl of Dundee told the House of Lords that Savile was ‘devoting his considerable talents to ensuring that the hospital functions smoothly’.
Alan Franey, a taskforce member and later Broadmoor’s general manager, said: ‘Savile was appointed to the task force by Edwina Currie, but it would have been on the recommendation of civil servants. It was a bit odd.’

Cliff Graham, under-secretary at the Department of Health and an advocate for NHS change, recommended that Savile sit on the taskforce.

Former Broadmoor staff recall being called to meetings with the DJ.
Mr Franey said: ‘I had an unusual meeting in the Athenaeum Club in London [Jimmy Savile and Cliff Graham were present]... and I was persuaded that a move to Broadmoor would be a good career step.’
The late David Edmond, the first chairman of the Special Hospitals Service Authority (SHSA), recalled: ‘I [was] asked to a strange meeting at Stoke Mandeville Hospital with Cliff Graham, Jimmy Savile, a retired Department of Health senior civil servant and other department officials...’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2478143/Jimmy-Savile-given-key-position-Broadmoor-personally-selected-hospitals-bosses.html


....can't help feeling these dead / ex-celebs are anti-missile chaff being sprayed from the back of the plane....dead weight being chucked off the back of the sledge to buy as much time as possible....
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Re: Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

Postby Searcher08 » Tue Jul 01, 2014 5:44 pm

@Semper - Absolutely. I am really wondering if the whole thing is going to blow sky-high - as questions were asked today in Parliament about what information Leon Brittain could provide about... a paedo ring at Westminister. Hmm.
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Re: Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

Postby zangtang » Tue Jul 01, 2014 6:45 pm

we'll see what he has to offer with his 'statement' tomorrow at lunch - got a feeling twill be a damp squib - and thereby damning in its own right.

really heartening to see that some of youse guys are right up to the 'eight-ball' on this.

but yeah, i think a fire-trench will get dug before the heavens crumble.........
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Re: Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

Postby Byrne » Wed Jul 02, 2014 1:49 am


Obituary: Clifford Graham
PETER SIMPSON

Wednesday 17 August 1994

Clifford Graham, civil servant: born Liverpool 3 April 1937; Clerical Officer, Admiralty 1954-59; Executive Officer, Customs and Excise 1959-65; Higher Executive Officer, Ministry of Health 1965-68; Principal, DHSS (later Department of Health) 1969- 74, Assistant Secretary 1975-82, Under-Secretary 1983-94; called to the Bar, Gray's Inn 1969; Director, Institute of Health, King's College London 1990-94; twice married (two sons, one daughter); died Milton Clevedon, Somerset 2 July 1994.

CLIFFORD GRAHAM was one of the people who made things happen in the National Health Service and in the wider issues of a healthy community. His work with Sir Roy Griffiths led to the introduction of general management in the NHS; he collaborated with the barrister Louis Blom- Cooper in tackling problems in mental health and illness and he was chairman of Newpin, an organisation concerned with disadvantage and abuse in the family. Graham epitomised imaginative management and would not be distracted from pursuing action on policies he thought to be right; indeed he took pleasure in exploring unconventional pathways to a proper end. That he was a civil servant, and grateful to the service for the chance it gave him, makes this all the more remarkable.

.......(continued)

Code: Select all
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-clifford-graham-1384051.html
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Re: Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

Postby stefano » Wed Jul 02, 2014 5:39 am

Searcher08 » Tue Jul 01, 2014 7:46 pm wrote:Not only would he have done it, he would have photographed the occasion as a memento, made and worn a souvenir from her, and bragged about it in public.


Dear God. Part of the problem is precisely the fact that this stuff is so sickening, that any normal person would instinctively avoid connecting the dots until there are dots all over the place. Like that interviewer, who doesn't immediately ask "why the fuck would you wait five days with your dead mother in the house before phoning an undertaker," and instead probably mentally reverted to a place of vague reassurance, telling herself "well that's very weird but sort of sweet if you want to be charitable, and I want to be charitable because otherwise I'll start thinking this friendly famous man is the kind of monster I've only ever read about."

Searcher08 » Tue Jul 01, 2014 7:46 pm wrote:I am trying to think of what is grosser than fucking your own dead mother as she decays for nearly a week. Perhaps torturing and killing kids? Doing it in front of people?


I suspect so.

Searcher08 » Tue Jul 01, 2014 7:46 pm wrote:I think from an RI frame that Savile, his behaviour and his function / sea-he-swam-in is incredibly important.


Definitely. Thanks all for your contributions.
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Re: Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

Postby semper occultus » Wed Jul 02, 2014 6:52 am

...not just to the Palace of Westminster that these trails always seem to lead back to ofcourse.....

Image
Portrait: Rolf Harris pictured painting the Queen at Buckingham Palace

Image
Became friendly with Prince Charles in the mid 1980s and, according to the Queen’s former press secretary Dickie Arbiter was “on the scene until the end of the Eighties”. Savile claimed to have been an adviser although Arbiter says that was an exaggeration
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Re: Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

Postby cptmarginal » Wed Jul 02, 2014 11:24 am

Byrne » Wed Jul 02, 2014 12:49 am wrote:

Obituary: Clifford Graham
PETER SIMPSON

Wednesday 17 August 1994

Clifford Graham, civil servant: born Liverpool 3 April 1937; Clerical Officer, Admiralty 1954-59; Executive Officer, Customs and Excise 1959-65; Higher Executive Officer, Ministry of Health 1965-68; Principal, DHSS (later Department of Health) 1969- 74, Assistant Secretary 1975-82, Under-Secretary 1983-94; called to the Bar, Gray's Inn 1969; Director, Institute of Health, King's College London 1990-94; twice married (two sons, one daughter); died Milton Clevedon, Somerset 2 July 1994.

CLIFFORD GRAHAM was one of the people who made things happen in the National Health Service and in the wider issues of a healthy community. His work with Sir Roy Griffiths led to the introduction of general management in the NHS; he collaborated with the barrister Louis Blom- Cooper in tackling problems in mental health and illness and he was chairman of Newpin, an organisation concerned with disadvantage and abuse in the family. Graham epitomised imaginative management and would not be distracted from pursuing action on policies he thought to be right; indeed he took pleasure in exploring unconventional pathways to a proper end. That he was a civil servant, and grateful to the service for the chance it gave him, makes this all the more remarkable.

.......(continued)

Code: Select all
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-clifford-graham-1384051.html


viewtopic.php?p=526279#p526279

I spotted this on a Newpin website (there are several different sites)

Image

See also:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2126545/

The future of Britain's high security hospitals
The culture and values won't change until the Prison Officers' Association is ousted

1997 May 3

Until a decade or so ago, the vast majority of mentally disordered offenders who posed a threat to public safety in Britain were consigned to one of the country's three “special hospi­tals”, Broadmoor, Rampton, and Ashworth (previously Moss Side and Park Lane). This is no longer the case. Most patients on whom a crown court judge has imposed a restriction order (under section 37/41 of the Mental Health Act 1983) are now cared for in regional secure units, general NHS psychiatric inpatient acute units, and independent sector hospitals. These institutions operate far more liberal regimes but with no less safety and without the problems that have dogged the special hospitals. Now that their role is much diminished, do these troubled hospitals have any role in the future of forensic mental health care? And if they do, how can they become clinically excellent institutions?

The special hospitals were run directly by the Home Office and staffed like prisons until 1948. They were then transferred to the Ministry of Health but did not join the new NHS, being managed directly by civil serv­ants. After increasing concern in the late 1980s about standards of care and security, the Special Hospitals Service Authority was established in 1989 to oversee the service at arm's length from the Department of Health. The undersecretary responsible for the service at that time, Cliff Graham, made no secret of his disquiet about the proposed continuation of a centralised management structure, but he felt it was a reasonable interim solution while the hospitals prepared themselves for greater self governance. One of the authority's main problems was to establish management control over a large group of staff that Mr Graham and others perceived to have a damaging influence on standards of care through their rigid, authoritarian, and denigrating attitudes to patients. A widely leaked internal report (the Olliff report, Depart­ment of Health, 1988, unpublished) suggested that, unless these staff members could be controlled, the only solution to the persistent problem of poor quality care was rapid closure of all three hospitals.
The new way of thinking is precisely delineated by what it is not.
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Re: Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

Postby Searcher08 » Wed Jul 02, 2014 11:38 am

I am really curious about the connections between Savile and the Bush family. As a first step I wanted to see if the Bushes had much of a Scottish connection. Forgive the detour, but this was so "R.I." it had to be posted.

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20010718LittleBoCreep.html
(from July 18, 2001)
.......
George spent summers herding sheep on a Scottish farm.

Wouldn't you think that the spinners and shapers would weave this bit of color into his biography? Weren't there life lessons learned as he pulled a lamb from the slobbering jaws of a wolf? Or perhaps he determined to do great things while watching the clouds form over the heath? Couldn't he have learned the value of the green earth and hard work and couldn't they have really, really milked the images? Wasn't there a photo of him in his little herder's pants with a staff and a couple of lambs leaning against his sturdy legs and a chorus of "Brigadoon" in his heart?

Why was this fairly important and definitely colorful part of his past omitted?

A little web surfing brings a clue to us.

The sheep farm in Perthshire, Scotland, belonged to a James Gammell. "Jimmy" was Scotland's most connected elitist financier, and an early partner in Zapata Oil. Zapata Oil, readers may know, is the early aggressive venture of George Herbert Walker Bush and his cronies, and reported to have had CIA involvement. "Operation Zapata" was also the CIA's code name for intelligence operations against Cuba.

Little George's first visit to Perthshire occurred in the same year that Fidel Castro seized power -- 1959. George was 13, and he delighted in the acceptance the Gammell family gave him, and recently told a London Times reporter about being mistaken by Texas tourists for a local lad:

(Incidentally, the son of the Gammell family, Bill, turns out to have gone to school in Edinburgh with Tony Blair. Perhaps Blair and Bush played Scottish boy on the farm and there's a deeper explanation to Bush's joke about toothpaste?)

To understand why omitting this episode is important for Bush, it's instructive to take a quick look at the crowd his family travels with. Here are just two paragraphs from a long and detailed review:

The Bush family ties to the Lairds and Lords of
Scotland and England

Lazard Brothers was controlled by officials in the
British government. It was always the investment
bank of David Rockefeller. And, besides Meyer and
Walker, George Bush's other large investor in Bush-
Overbey was British Assets Trust, Ltd., an
investment company whose directors interlocked with
the management of companies associated with Lord
Kindersley, such as Hudson's Bay Company. The
chairman of British Assets Trust in 1956 was J.G.S.
Gammell in Edinburgh, Scotland, and in 1985 by
J.C.R. Inglis, a partner in Shepherd & Wedderburn,
WS, an Edinburgh law firm. Inglis was also a
director of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group,
Scottish Provident Institution for Mutual Life
Assurance, Edinburgh American Assets Trust and
Atlantic Assets Trust, as well as chairman of
European Assets, N.V., Gammell also had served as
director of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group, as
did such other notables as The Right Hon. Lord
Balfour of Burleigh, The Right Hon. Lord Clydesmuir
and The Right Hon. Lord Polwarth. Polwarth,
incidentally, began serving as a director of the
Halliburton Company, parent of Brown & Root, in 1974.

The Bush family continued to amass its fortune and
power from the British and Scottish sources named
above, as these sources introduced their financial
tentacles into Texas, and as George H.W. Bush and
Barbara drove that old red Studebaker into Houston.


liveoaktx Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Feb-19-05 01:43 AM
Response to Reply #31
32. One more unusual link- Blair, Bush and Bill Gammell, son of James

http://www.energybulletin.net/2924.html

Why Blair and Bush are so chummy revealed!:
There is really no need to go to far to know why US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair get along so famously.

The missing link has now been discovered -- William Gammell, the CEO of Cairn Energy, the whizz-kid oil company that has boomed over the past year.

According to The Telegraph, former Scottish rugby international Gammell, 51, was not only Blair's classmate and and school debating partner, but also shared his childhood with him and Bush.

Gammell, who has just been crowned Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year, used to have George junior over at his place during the school holidays because Gammell's father, James Gammell, was also in the oil business and was a friend of George Bush Senior.

James Gammell is the founder of the Scottish fund manager, Ivory and Sime, which in 1950 backed Bush-Overby, Bush Senior's fledgling oil and natural-gas business. Their sons struck up a friendship and spent childhood holidays together at the Bush family compound at Kennebunkport, Maine, and the Gammell family farm in Perthshire.

And so, when Bush became President, his first words to Blair were, "I believe you know my old friend, Bill Gammell."
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Re: Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

Postby cptmarginal » Wed Jul 02, 2014 12:18 pm

semper occultus » Tue Jul 01, 2014 1:31 am wrote:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/rolf-harris-jimmy-savile-day-3791043
Rolf Harris and Jimmy Savile: The day evil paedophiles penned autographs for kids at fete


Image

"Sketched: Two original signed sketches of Sir Jimmy, one smoking a cigar, by Rolf Harris are included in the auction with both estimated at £400 to £600"

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... rtune.html
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Re: Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

Postby cptmarginal » Wed Jul 02, 2014 12:33 pm

semper occultus » Wed Jul 02, 2014 5:52 am wrote:...not just to the Palace of Westminster that these trails always seem to lead back to ofcourse.....


I'm still wondering if he had some connection to Paul Kidd, the royal butler. Even if not, it's still fairly incredible how that story has managed to go practically unnoticed for so long; one would think that it would at least be worth some investigative journalism or even a book treatment. Instead there's been essentially zero information beyond the news of his arrest and of his conviction.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... amily.html

A police source said: 'Kidd was a very accomplished groomer of children.

'Given that he has been behaving like this for 30 years the likelihood is there could be many other victims out there who have not yet come forward.

'This man used his Royal connections to impress and seduce young boys. He even had autographed pictures of Manchester United players on his walls at home.

'He was acting with at least one other man and it's possible he could have been communicating with many other paedophiles over many years.

'These offences are probably just the tip of the iceberg.'

Kidd had honed his skills as a silver service waiter when he joined the Royal Navy after leaving school - looking after the captain and officers.

During his naval service he visited 22 countries around the world. In 1976 he was appointed as butler to the Queen at Buckingham Palace and served there for six years until being transferred to Clarence House where he served the Queen Mother.

During his years in Royal service, he was said to have met and looked after three American Presidents including Jimmy Carter and Ronald Regan plus many other Heads of State from around the world.

He was also said to have worked closely with Princess Diana at Buckingham Palace in the six months prior to her wedding to Prince Charles.


Savile's lifelong Royal Navy associations:

http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.com/20 ... -game.html

Following the sad death of Sir Jimmy Savile on 29th October 2011 and during our week of remembrance it seems fitting to share the details of the long association with the Royal Marines that Sir Jimmy had. Over an extended period Sir Jimmy completed the Commando Training Course at Lympstone, Devon. In 1966 Sir Jimmy and his brother Vince, then a serving officer with the Royal Navy, completed the gruelling 30 mile march over Dartmoor which has to be done in 8 hours. Jimmy and Vince both finished the march and Jimmy was awarded the coveted green beret. Over the years Sir Jimmy maintained his connection with the Corps often attending parades and ceremonies. His passing is a loss to the Royal Marines who will sorely miss him.

So still reads the official website of the Royal Marines just now.

[...]

A Royal Naval Fleet Air Arm flying jumpsuit, with a name tag 'Jimmy Savile OBE' Sir Jimmy completed the full commando course in stages before receiving the coveted green beret. He was buried wearing his Commando medal, of which he was so proud, awarded to him after breaking his ribs during a charity wrestling match with a very tough marine at the Commando Training Centre at Lympstone and then continuing the commando course the following day. The six pall bearers at Sir Jimmy's funeral were from the sergeants' mess at Lympstone and Marine buglers were in attendance.


Royal Marines ‘erase’ the memory of Jimmy Savile

Royal Marine base at centre of new Jimmy Savile abuse claims

PREDATORY paedophile Jimmy Savile sexually abused youngsters during visits to the Royal Marine's prestigious Commando Training Centre in the Westcountry, it has been alleged.

Police sources confirmed that four complaints had been made against disgraced star Savile who was a regular visitor to the base at Lympstone, East Devon, over almost 40 years.

They are among hundreds of claims which have been made against the former Top of the Pops presenter after Operation Yewtree was launched by the Metropolitan Police in October last year.

One former Royal Marine officer, who asked not to be named, said he was "shocked and appalled" by the allegations.

"It is now clear that Jimmy Savile was a despicable individual," he said. "The possibility that he attacked children while on Ministry of Defence property is extremely serious. I hope every effort is being made to investigate these allegations."

The complaints are an acute embarrassment for the proud corps which even named a room at Lympstone after the star. The Savile Room – an area for junior ratings and their families – has now been renamed The Families' Room.

A spokesman for the Royal Navy said: "The Royal Navy Police have consulted with the Devon and Cornwall Constabulary and the matter now lies in their hands."

Savile had a long association with the Royal Marines and the Commando Training Centre.

He was awarded the coveted Green Beret in the 1970s for being one of only two civilians to complete the Royal Marine Commando speed march – 30 miles across Dartmoor carrying 30lb of kit.

Seven Royal Marines also acted as pall bearers at Savile's funeral, in Leeds, in November 2011.

Savile is said to have taken his Green Beret to the grave along with a Help for Heroes wristband.

After the abuse scandal broke, the Royal Marines said there was no need to remove the beret honour.

In 2006, Savile mixed with Royal Marine veterans to mark the 60th anniversary of the old comrades group. He was a special guest at the training centre, joining more than 300 members of the Royal Marines Association for the anniversary ceremonies.

Last December, Devon and Cornwall Police confirmed it had received six complaints of abuse committed by Savile.

Although the force would not directly comment on the location of the abuse, four incidents are alleged to have happened at Lympstone. The dates of the offences are not known. Another offence in 1970 is said to have occurred at Exeter Hospital.


Image

-

One other detail about Paul Kidd that lines up perfectly with Savile, cruise ship lectures:

Speaking about his life as a former butler, he told the MEN: "The glamour has gone. I no longer have carriage duties. But I enjoy the talks I give, which give a lot of pleasure, and I get invitations to give presentations on cruise ships, which has taken me round the world."


http://www.express.co.uk/expressyoursel ... ruise-ship

I met Jimmy Savile many times. When I retired from journalism I was invited by Cunard to lecture aboard its liners. Savile was a regular feature on those ships too.

He always travelled first class and for free. He boasted that he was so famous the QE2 couldn't sail without him.

Unlike other first-class passengers he refused to dress for dinner. Instead he wore his multi-coloured polyester shellsuits.
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Re: Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

Postby Byrne » Wed Jul 02, 2014 3:12 pm

A blog post from 2008 by (the sadly missed) Postman Patel:
[quote]
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The UK elites and their prediliction for sex with children

some interesting comments, including on the Dubya/Blair connection & on Cyril Smith etc.
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Re: Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

Postby stefano » Wed Jul 02, 2014 3:31 pm

New post by Craig Murray:

Elm Guest House

There is a huge amount of dancing on eggshells going on today in the media about the dossier on paedophile activity with which Leon Brittan came in contact in the 1980s. It is pretty plain there is a subtext here.

A number of people have contacted me for some years over the Elm Guest House paedophile ring. Frankly I did not particularly believe it, or thought it was exaggerated. But I confess my eyes have been opened by the Jimmy Savile, Cyril Smith and Rolf Harris affairs and the extent of complicity and even protection which they received from the establishment.

I have blogged before that, in the Savile case, as his behaviour was apparently compulsive and constant, I found it hard to believe it was not known in the very senior societal circles in which he spent so much of his time. I am convinced that perception was right.

Savile is not linked in to the Elm House paedophile ring, as far as I know, but Cyril Smith is. So were the then head of the Royal Protection Unit and of Special Branch. That to me raises all sorts of queries about whether they were not just participating themselves but protecting someone very senior indeed. I have been convinced that it is true that social workers interviewing child victims were indeed threatened with guns by Special Branch to drop it, and that paperwork has been confiscated and destroyed.

On Cyril Smith, Channel 4 Dispatches on 12 September 2013 reported that:

‘Speaking for the first time, former CID officer Jack Tasker tells the programme that Special Branch officers arrived at his office, told him to halt his investigations and demanded that the file be handed over to them,.“They made it quite clear that anything that was kept by us would bring repercussions if we didn’t hand it over; that as far as we are concerned, the inquiry is finished … you will take no more inquiries into Cyril Smith

Compare that to what happened to child protection officer Chris Fay in his Elm House investigation, as reported in the Express:

Mr Fay, 67, of south London, said: “It became very dangerous. People seem to forget that Special Branch could do what they liked, they were a law unto themselves.

“At one point they had me up against a wall by my throat with a gun at my head telling me in no uncertain terms that I was to back away if I knew what was good for me.

“A colleague of mine had the same treatment, as did a number of the volunteers. Victims who were actually abused at Elm House were also physically stopped from coming to speak to us at the NAYPIC office in north London.

“I witnessed Special Branch officers manhandling them and turning them away with a warning to keep their mouths shut. It was blatant, it was open, they were acting like gangsters.

In both Rochdale and in North London, Special Branch intervened to block the appropriate authorities on the ground from investigating what was a genuine paedophile scandal. I can see no other possible explanation than that the scandal involved figures a great deal more senior than Cyril Smith. From the Elm Guest House we have a pointer who some of those people were.

I really don’t want to blog any more about this, and I recommend you to have a search online. That involves trawling around some of the less pleasant parts of the internet, and I have seen material that is horribly anti-Semitic and anti-gay. But after years of dismissing the stories, on the grounds that they are promulgated by unpleasant people, in unpleasant newspapers, or cannot be true, I realise I was wrong.
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Re: Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

Postby RocketMan » Thu Jul 03, 2014 11:07 am

Essentially a "the bad thing has gone away, rest easy" piece, but a few interesting observations:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... dark-sides

Recently I've been wondering if there is any celebrity I've interviewed who is not being investigated by Operation Yewtree. You name them, I've done them. Max Clifford? Tick. Jimmy Savile? Tick. Rolf Harris? Tick. As an interviewer, it's only natural to wonder how badly you've misjudged these characters. Should I have known? Were there clues? Perhaps it's time for a career change.

Fourteen years ago I interviewed Savile in a seedy King's Cross hotel. When I walked into the room he was lying on a double bed. Perhaps he was hoping for a vulnerable whippersnapper rather than a middle-aged bloke. If he's playing that game, I thought, so am I. So I jumped on to the bed, lay down and conducted the interview from that position. He looked disturbed and insisted we lie head to toe.

Savile was by turns bonkers, obliging (he let me wear his jewellery and have one of his cigars, though he reclaimed it as soon as it had been lit and the photographer had taken a picture of me smoking) and menacing. I felt I was being toyed with. He'd hint at his true nature, tempt you to ask more, then turn on you. When I asked him about the rumours that he was a paedophile, he told me he had started telling people he hated children to deflect the rumours, but that it was rubbish. Yet he kept returning to the subject, as if inviting me to scratch away at his scab.

At the end of the interview, he told me the following story. "I once said to a girl, 'I'm older than your grandfather.' And she says, 'Well, I love him as well.' I say, 'Good, but I'm still too old for you', and she says, 'No, you're not because you're ageless, you're you.' Now that didn't come from me, it comes from someone else. So when people say to me, 'Don't you think you're too old to do this?', I say I'm doing what I'm doing 'cause I'm having a good time and why don't you piss off and leave me to do it?"

Whereas Savile was never charged with sexual offences, Clifford was, and in May he was sentenced to eight years in jail after being found guilty of eight indecent assaults. Before his trial, I had regarded Clifford, the self-proclaimed "king of spin", as an honest liar. He admitted to making up stories and claimed they served a larger truth. David Mellor was a cad who deserved what was coming to him after preaching family values and having an affair with Antonia de Sancha, so Clifford simply made up the bit about him having sex in his Chelsea top because it served him right.

In court, it emerged that he also told tales to cover up his own criminality. He rubbished his accusers, said he'd never met them, that they were mad, desperate, unattractive, liars. Like Savile, he felt invincible. How could tabloid editors touch him when he fed them their tastiest morsels and kept his own black book on the indiscretions of public figures? In court he said if he was guilty of anything it was greed. He could make women famous and they would pay him back in kind. What man could resist that?

As with Savile, it was about power and the abuse of power. While "Sir Jimmy" had the establishment eating out of his hand – spending Christmas with Margaret Thatcher at Chequers, acting as a marriage counsellor for Prince Charles and Princess Diana, raising millions for charity – Clifford had the media eating out of his. Like Savile, he was forever telling us about his good deeds. And like Savile, he regarded himself as a good-time guy with an insatiable lust for life. Greedy, that's all they were.

Clifford was greedy all right – from the Bentleys and Rolls-Royces (just like Savile) to the young girls who came to his office hoping for careers in modelling. If the tabloids had exposed him, I asked when interviewing him, what would it have been for? "They might have said I'm perverted because of a lot of the things I got up to," he said. "Like having three in bed together at the same time, getting women to perform together … to me it was wonderful, hugely enjoyable and everyone else seemed to enjoy it and it never got out."

Harris was tried in the same court a few weeks after Clifford was convicted there. Some of the similarities were eerie. Young girls, gropings, often seemingly in public, his victims too embarrassed or ashamed to go to the police; the admission that he was greedy, he liked sex, yes his appetite might have been too healthy, but nothing more.

Harris is the most painful case to process. Savile we always suspected was weird and dark, Clifford you weren't too surprised by. But Harris? The funny fella with the beard and paintbrush, the daft instruments and the undulating accent made for trusting little boys and girls? The avuncular Aussie who surprised us with paintings he magicked out of nowhere, who wobbled those crazy DIY musical instruments?

This is the man who was found guilty this week of all 12 charges of indecent assault of young girls, including his daughter's close friend; the pervert who admitted that one of the few conversations he could remember having with his daughter's friend was about removing his semen stains from the sheets. He's not just betrayed himself and his many victims, he's betrayed the very notion of childhood innocence. This week, the Sun alleged that he had visited Broadmoor with Savile, turning up on a women's ward just as they were preparing to undress in the corridor.

All three are symptomatic of an age when men believed they could have it all, when they didn't think their actions had moral consequences. And even if they did, they weren't answerable to them because of their fame.

All three hid in plain sight. Clifford boasted of the tricks he played on women to get them to undress in his office, Savile felt up young girls in front of the Top of the Pops cameras, Harris sang comedy songs about sex with 13-year-olds. And nobody said a word.

All three sold themselves to us as protectors of children – Savile clunk-clicking with safety belts and looking after the vulnerable at Stoke Mandeville hospital, Clifford helping to bring Jonathan King to book for downloading child pornography, Harris campaigning on television against child sex abuse, singing, "My body's no body's body but mine / You take care of your body / I'll look after mine".

All three demanded to be noticed, like overgrown schoolboys. Everything about Savile screamed for attention, while Clifford and Harris couldn't help performing even when facing jail. Clifford tried to control the press from the courtroom, while Harris gave the judge and jury a rendition of Jake the Peg and an impersonation of a didgeridoo. When I met them, Savile compared himself to Peter Pan, Clifford to "a kid in a sweetshop" and Harris to "a big kid".

I have never felt so strongly the presence of two contrasting characters as when I interviewed Harris. For much of the interview he performed, just as he did in court – he sang, he laughed in that exaggerated way, he whispered in that exaggerated way, he drew me a miniature flick cartoon book. Then, when he wasn't performing, he was miserable as sin.

Whereas Clifford and Savile never appeared to question their essential goodness as men and altruists, Harris hated himself. He talked about what a useless father he'd been – selfish, paying more attention to strangers than to his wife and daughter, chasing his own dreams and desires, ignoring those of his family. He had recently written an autobiography and it had forced him to reassess his life. "You start writing it by thinking what a great guy I am. I've done this, that and the other. Then you suddenly think it's all been inward focussing, only me, me, me, me, me, me, me, and people who are really close …" I never began to suspect why he was so tortured. At the time he came across as a man with humility, in touch with his flaws. But in retrospect, I think even here he was indulging himself – only this time, it was his guilt rather than his libido.

In interviews, I believe you should always conclude with something that sums up how you feel about the character. After all, it is about the lasting impression. With Savile, I used his quote that I should piss off for even daring to question him about his relationships with young girls. With Clifford, he stood up from behind his desk and his trousers fell down – they had been undone throughout the interview. I didn't think it was sexual, but I did think it was another example of him behaving inappropriately, not caring, showing who was boss. But for Harris, I didn't have a clue. By the end, the self-lacerating Harris had long disappeared and he was singing his songs of blessed innocence, accompanying himself on the human didgeridoo. "Sun arise, come with the dawning, spreading all the light all around." That is the Harris I remembered – or at least the Harris I chose to remember.


I'm REALLY starting to wonder about the supposed harmlessness, or not, of the whole Peter Pan... thing.
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Re: Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

Postby slimmouse » Thu Jul 03, 2014 4:27 pm

One of the major problems with all of this Saville affair, with all of its clear implications to involvement at the highest levels of Govnt and society is that too many people refuse to understand that this world is run by fucking maniacs.

Despite this being obvious to anyone who has read this thread and possesses half a brain.
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Re: Jimmy Savile: I'd like to comment but I can't...

Postby RocketMan » Thu Jul 03, 2014 4:37 pm

slimmouse » Thu Jul 03, 2014 11:27 pm wrote:One of the major problems with all of this Saville affair, with all of its clear implications to involvement at the highest levels of Govnt and society is that too many people refuse to understand that this world is run by fucking maniacs.

Despite this being obvious to anyone who has read this thread and possesses half a brain.


Yes, as evidenced in the article I posted above. The journalist stubbornly focuses on the personal proclivities of Savile et al without once stopping to look at the wider context where they were allowed for decades to hobnob with the crème de la crème of Anglo-American society.

Savile's close relationship with prince Charles should be especially jarring, but doesn't seem to be in the media. Seems to me that Savile exuded a sickly aura to many casual observers like journalists, and rumours were circulating for decades, but Charles seemed to think the world of Savile.

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