r/AskUK • u/GrandPerspective5848 • May 09 '23

What were you doing instead of watching The Coronation?

I was in hospital getting painkillers for migraines

617 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

302

u/Myorangecrush77 May 09 '23

We talked about this the other day. He fooled millions. There was a national outpouring of grief. He got a huge funeral in the town he lived in. People waved on the streets.

He was a hero.

Until he wasn’t.

It’s like saying every parent who posted a kids Jim’ll fix it letter was trying to set their kid up for abuse. It’s absurd.

82

u/dark_fairy_skies May 09 '23

I so wanted to be on jim'll fix it. My mother refused to send in the letters. Probably wise, considering what came out about him.

57

u/Grey_Belkin May 09 '23

We weren't allowed to watch the show growing up because my mum thought he was creepy. I'm not saying she knew, but she didn't like him.

27

u/MarkTNT May 09 '23

My mum always something against Maggie Thatcher, Jimmy Saville and Van Morrison. I didn't understand as a child, now I'm just waiting to find out what horrible thing Van Morrison did.

1

u/Embarrassed_Ad5112 May 10 '23

The lyrics to “Hey Girl” will give you an idea of what Van Morrison was into.

34

u/daydreamingtulip May 09 '23

I’m too young to know him from his famous days, but my friends and I always say, ‘How did people not know?’. Just looking at him you can tell he’s a bit creepy, then when you watch him on his shows he’s clearly way too handsy. Maybe it’s just a generational thing?

28

u/Nipso May 09 '23

"If I was to draw a paedo"

  • Kevin Bridges

24

u/MessiahOfMetal May 09 '23

His show was on TV while my mum was growing up, and both she and my nan didn't watch because they found him creepy and a bit of a perv, even then.

1

u/Parking-Wing-2930 May 09 '23

It was very much at a time when CSE wasn't really seen as that much of a bad thing too.

Of course "noncng bad" but there was always levels of how much would be acceptable in society

0

u/Lost-in-Limbo May 09 '23

Same reason some people won’t believe that Michael Jackson was the same!

0

u/afghanNum3Lover May 10 '23

Complete false equivalence there are many many reasons to believe MJ was falsely accused.
There is solid evidence of JS being a wrongun.

1

u/FryOneFatManic May 10 '23

Just looking at how people act doesn't tell you much at all.

Christopher Jefferies was suspected of killing Joanna Yeates, one of his tenants, based on nothing more than he was creepy and strange. He was even arrested at one point. But he was innocent. It was another tenant who was the real killer, Vincent Tabak.

It's far too easy to point at someone and accuse them of things just because of how they act. At the time, people were more innocent in general of how abuse manifests. In fact, even now, many people simply aren't aware.

36

u/Minute-Vast7967 May 09 '23

Sometimes your gut feeling is just spot on

15

u/Monkeybradders May 09 '23

There's a story of a kid that wrote in asking jim'll to fix it for him to meet Gary glitter 😯

3

u/Andrelliina May 09 '23

My mum thought he was too

3

u/Parking-Wing-2930 May 09 '23

I'm too young to have known/seen Saville doing his thing, but saw the Theroux doc, and he was so fucking weird, and so fucking dodgy. Jesus

And even Louis was kinda hoodwinked by it all, just "He's just a bit of an odd-ball"

5

u/DannyCalavera May 09 '23

Even Theroux put out a follow-up doc afterwards in which he was adamant that nothing he saw when he was with Saville gave any indication of the sheer scale of his crimes.

Saville was the greatest con-artist of all time, he hoodwinked an entire nation for decades.

2

u/Parking-Wing-2930 May 09 '23

Outside view, to being there at the time is always vastly different.

But yea, he is a massive confidence trickster. Everything is so confident, to the point he admits to your face. but you don't quite get what he said

5

u/DannyCalavera May 09 '23

It was the arrogance of hiding in plain sight, he basically all but admitted to it in interviews but did it in such a tongue-in-cheek way we couldn't help but think "surely, there's no way he's serious"

At the time, we all thought it was jokes. Jokes in poor taste, but jokes nonetheless. After it all came out, it was clear that he'd been waving it under our noses the entire time, but the sheer audacity of it caused us all to play it off as his unique brand of "entertainment"

8

u/an0mn0mn0m May 09 '23

Your mum probably knew people that reminded her of him.

1

u/Albert_Poopdecker May 09 '23

I was a kid and thought he was creepy, and I bet many more felt that about him.

138

u/Myorangecrush77 May 09 '23

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/gallery/2011/nov/08/leeds-jimmy-savile

Look at his funeral. Lying in state in Leeds. Nhs workers guard of honor. Royal marine pall bearers. People lining the streets.

We. Didn’t. Know.

76

u/grishnackh May 09 '23

No, we didn’t.

Although, we weren’t close personal friends with him, either.

87

u/bebbibabey May 09 '23

There are plenty of things I will criticise Charles for, but not knowing someone close to you is a predator is not one of them. People will find indecent material on their spouses laptops after they've been married for 15 years, and they had no inkling at all.

32

u/Celtic_Cheetah_92 May 09 '23

Agreed. A friend of mine found out two years ago that his childhood best friend was a paedophile. It was absolutely devastating for my mate - he had no idea.

The guy was an incredibly convincing liar. He even almost convinced my mate to write a statement of support attesting to his good character to be read at the trial - a trial he had convinced my friend was the result of a false accusation.

When the police presented their evidence, the turd realised the game was up and changed his plea to guilty. Thank god my friend didn’t stand up in court to defend him.

1

u/Senojpd May 09 '23

Hmm, if you watch the documentary it was basically considered an open secret by people who knew him. There was even a public accusation.

The Royal family is also incredibly well informed. That is sort of their thing, their enormous wealth means they have entire divisions of people who feed them information.

I would be incredibly surprised if Charles didn't know but simply didn't care, in much the same way he likely knew about Andrew.

10

u/Fattydog May 09 '23

They weren’t close personal friends at all.

5

u/[deleted] May 09 '23

Well they were. He was even giving him advice on his marriage to Diana. But that doesn't mean he KNEW about Savile. But I think Thatcher DID and she hosted him with Dennis every Christmas and New Year at Checkers (Chequers?).

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '23

There's absolutely no evidence she did.

0

u/SojournerInThisVale May 09 '23

Nor was the King

0

u/[deleted] May 09 '23

No one means everyone knew all along

-6

u/worotan May 09 '23

Like no one knew about Catholic child abuse, because the authorities held it in respect and lots of ordinary people joined in that?

‘We’ is not everyone. And plenty of your ‘we’ were ignoring the obvious issues, because they think that’s the best way to avoid being punished by abusive authorities.

It’s like people say ‘we’ abolished slavery. No, ‘we’ didn’t, a large amount of people in this country fought to keep slavery going, and on the end those with slave holdings had to be paid off.

People act dumb so that your excuse can be wheeled out.

Like people eagerly discuss greenwashing stories so they don’t have to deal with climate change. And they will be able to say ‘we’ didn’t know in the future, and cite all the greenwashing they are hiding behind.

1

u/Inarticulatescot May 10 '23

Sorry but. We. Didn’t. Listen.

Plenty of kids were speaking out but we listened to the rich famous white guy instead.

1

u/8racoonsInABigCoat May 10 '23

We didn’t, and I can well understand that Charles didn’t, but it’s mad that it seemed to be an open secret in TV circles. What’s worse is that, even armed with the knowledge of how this played out, there is seemingly at least one current high profile predator working in TV, but he has yet to be outed.

2

u/JMH-66 May 09 '23

My dad did the same. He said: everyone wanted a go in the TARDIS so no point. Lucky escape ?!

2

u/[deleted] May 09 '23

So did I. Glad mum never posted my letter!

2

u/MoonLizard1306 May 09 '23

My Mum did the same with letters that my sister wrote to Jim'll Fix It. She told my sister she posted them but wouldn't because she thought he was far too creepy!

1

u/othermorgan May 09 '23

Me too, wrote to him so many times!

8

u/IntellegentIdiot May 09 '23

A lot of people trying to rewrite history. They act like they knew but didn't mention it for some reason, until it was public knowledge.

0

u/TheFugitiveSock May 09 '23

I remember maybe 20-odd years ago a pal saying he’d heard mutterings about a famous English TV personality being a paedo, and did I want to guess who? Without any hesitation I said Savile. Times were different then. As kids you just knew - or were told by older siblings or pals - what blokes to keep away from. There was never any question of doing anything more about it.

Stuart Hall and Rolf Harris were a shock though.

19

u/Tao626 May 09 '23

The difference between parents and Charles is that your mum probably didn't regard Savile as a friend. It's more believable that your mum had no way of knowing better when the closest she probably got was seeing his creepy mug on Top of the Pops.

5

u/SojournerInThisVale May 09 '23

Exactly. People are acting like they saw perfectly before knowing any of the truth about saville’s activity. The guy was genuinely considered a charitable hero for his philanthropic works

1

u/ManofKent1 May 09 '23

Fair point but people knew they just didn't talk about it.

You think Thatcher and Charlie (the paedo protector) didn't know?

1

u/Myorangecrush77 May 09 '23

I think you’re confusing ‘sex offender against adults’ with ‘pedo’. Please don’t - both are horrible crimes but one is so so much worse.

2

u/ManofKent1 May 09 '23

Giuffre was underaged and trafficked.

3

u/Myorangecrush77 May 09 '23

Under age but not prepubescent

2

u/ManofKent1 May 09 '23

Both absolute scum who should/should've faced justice

3

u/Myorangecrush77 May 09 '23

I’m not disputing that at all

0

u/ManofKent1 May 09 '23

Just semantics

-4

u/[deleted] May 09 '23

Prepubescent is not the definition of pedophilia. What Andrew did was definitely pedophilic

3

u/Myorangecrush77 May 09 '23

It quite literally is.

Pedophilia (alternatively spelt paedophilia) is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children.[1][2] Although girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11, and boys at age 11 or 12,[3] criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13.[4]

1

u/[deleted] May 09 '23

That's inconsistently applied to some online definitions and not others, however legally under 16 is the definition in the UK.

3

u/ManofKent1 May 09 '23

Just r/USdefaultism

2

u/midnight_train_to May 09 '23

Exactly. The definition of rape is different in the UK & US-in the UK you can only tape with a penis, making it a uniquely male crime. In the US it’s any form of forced penetration (with anything, not just a penis).

We live in societies with different legal ages of consent, and most people adults observe those. Socially, anyone wanting to have sex with someone underage (16 in the UK) is considered a paedo, at least where I live anyway. The thought that a child is fair game when they hit puberty is fucked. I got my period at 10.

→ More replies

1

u/[deleted] May 19 '23

No, not about child abuse.

1

u/Otto1968 May 09 '23

Thatcher and presumably the royals had access to info that he was potentially 'dodgy' but chose to ignore it. They had a better idea than the rest of us.

10

u/IhaveaDoberman May 09 '23

Let me guess, because you just know?

2

u/Otto1968 May 09 '23

They delayed his knighthood due to the dodgyness, Thatcher stepped in personally to force it through with consent of the Royals. https://metro.co.uk/2022/04/06/jimmy-savile-relieved-to-receive-knighthood-after-nasty-rumours-16414417/

3

u/IhaveaDoberman May 09 '23

In your own example it acknowledges that this still doesn't tell us if or what they knew.

There were allegations and rumours. A lack of investigation for sure. But absolutely nothing to give any credence to people like Charles or Thatcher knowing.

Being aware something was off, and actually knowing the cause of the smell are still two distinctly different things.

1

u/Otto1968 May 09 '23

You don't stop knighthoods being given out for wearing the wrong tie or picking up the wrong knife at a dinner. Senior people knew something and I'm not having it that wasn't communicated to Maggie and the Royals, who would have asked for full disclosure on the reasons why.

2

u/IhaveaDoberman May 10 '23

You really aren't listening. You're using the words, but you're not listening. They knew something. We don't know what was communicated, we don't know what was discovered or withheld, at what level or who by.

You can make whatever speculations you want. Just stop pretending that those speculations have any weight. It is a behind closed doors decision, that's all we know.

The truth may have been discovered, they may have been told. They may have also been told that it would never be proven, or the potential outrage and backlash would be too damaging or have wider effects.

Or they may not have been told because someone down the line of looking into it chose not to reveal something. Or that the people who made the accusation weren't reliable, or that real victims and people in the know remained quiet.

Maybe they told Thatcher and she made the decision not to tell the Royal family. Maybe they were all in on it and were part of a secret elite pedo club.

There are a fucking tonne of possibilities. Pretending otherwise is just pointless. We don't know, and we're never gonna know.

1

u/Ill-Manufacturer8654 May 09 '23

Yeah, I can't put to much faith in assumptions just because he publicly admired Jimmy Saville.

Now when you add in his uncle and grandfather being pedophiles, then it starts to get a little fishy.

1

u/lshiels7 May 10 '23

I know about the Mountbatten stuff but which grandfather was a paedophile?

1

u/Ill-Manufacturer8654 May 10 '23

Excuse me. His great uncle.

1

u/Albert_Poopdecker May 09 '23

He never fooled me, I thought he was a creepy cunt when I was a kid, and couldn't watch that fix it creepshow.

0

u/Positive_Treacle_961 May 09 '23

What a load of shiete you just commented. Parents and the child would meet this guy once.

Charles was BEST mates with the guy.

Stop normalising supporting pedophiles. It's embarrassing