Recently just finished the Davies book In Plain Sight. The book I think gives some insight into Savile, his crimes and the cultural milieu that allowed his wicked reign for so long but, as Davies admits even after having close personal contact for seven years and even more years of independent research, ultimately Savile, while not having probably much depth was inscrutable, probably even to himself. What does seem apparent from the exhaustive book, which the title makes plain, was while Davies was quite intelligent and used that intelligence to evade being brought to justice, his crimes were pretty well known in many circles of the entertainment industry, government, police, the medical field, etc And he was as reckless as he was prolific, if not for the untold times when hospital staff, from porters, nurses, to administrators, or police, up and down the organizational ladder and similarly at the BBC, dance halls, city governments, even unfortunately many victim's parents colluding with Savile, disbelieving the victims or more commonly just turning a blind eye he would have been probably nipped way back in the 50's. Some of this is because he definitely built a power base throughout a cross section of all of society to insulate him, but some of it seemed to be a strange willingness on most of a nation to disbelieve that such a celebrity charity figure was capable of such things even though he perversely created such allusions openly into his persona.
Finishing the book, the only thing I could immediately liken this phenomenon to was the novel/film by Stephen King, IT. I hate to invite any further supernatural speculation regarding Savile because it seems just to muddy the waters of something that seems to have pretty straight explanations so I'm just looking to the parallel reaction of the towns people in the book/film and the persona of Pennywise and not his actual supernatural origin or powers. (Although Savile's life changing accident as a young man in the mines is ripe for occult analysis, but I digress.)
In the novel/film IT the adult towns people of Derry are unable to recognize the child killer clown Pennywise in their midst. Only the children involved are able to recognize him and evidence of him even when parents and authority figures are faced with direct evidence. Even the children when they grow up "forget" Pennywise. Bizarrely, I think Stephen King, really intuitively hit on the conspiracy of silence that a lot of children victims experience when they encounter abuse, especially institutional abuse and collusion. In regards to Savile, it is like the town of Derry was all of the UK and they decided to give Pennywise his own television shows aimed at youth as well as unlimited access to hospitals where he could prey on them. Savile traveled the country in his Rolls and RV, even requesting during some periods "five virgins" to be provided for him by the town councils to camp with when he came to town for a charity gig. And they did! At least twice he assaulted or tried to assault all or some of the girls provided. Sadly, some of his child victims tried to forget or move on regarding and only when having to witness him in some new television show as an adult did they make a complaint. In Plain Sight, many times is like reading about a character on the scale of Pennywise. It is estimated in one report that just via the BBC on site and off-site he could have molested 1000 victims. Even after leaving the Top of the Pops, he came back for its last show, or anniversary show and he assaulted a teen from the audience at age 80. One of his last big charity projects was his attempt to build a children's hospital which he specified to look like a castle which he claimed he would always be in residence! Thank God, that was one of the drives he wasn't successful with.
Kind of mind blowing and pathetically sad. Never thought I'd read about a real life individual who would remind me so much of the fictional Pennywise.
Guys and gals, we all float down here. How's about that, then?
If I knew all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not charity, I am nothing. St. Paul
I hang onto my prejudices, they are the testicles of my mind. Eric Hoffer
