The Dean

All this Jimmy Savile stuff is depressing me............ so here is an entirely gratuitous picture of Sky newsreader Gemma Morris, who has been Tweeting me in the most delightful fashion........

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...34BF6D&first=1

NorthernLad

Happy Halloween.

Autonomy

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...ion-bbc-401928

Savile, Gary Glitter and now Freddie Starr... it's like a game show made in hell...

Patsy Stoned

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...sing-room.html

I fail to understand how the police can "arrest" a person because a woman accuses them of touching her breasts 40 years ago?? Surely they mean "they are helping the police with their inquires"

This is getting a bit silly now, I don't mean to trivialise what has been happening but seriously??? If they arrested every man who groped a girl's breast back in the 70's most girl's uncles and their parents male friends would be arrested alongside Freddie!
As for these people suing Savile's estate ..what for? If it was so traumatic why didn't they speak up years ago?
The woman who says that JS groping her all those years ago traumatised her for life and ruined her marriage!!! Really???

The Dean

Quite - and looking at the TOTP footage, she doesn't exactly appear to be resisting ......... she is grinning from ear to ear........

al dente

Dean, come on. A teenage girl. On live tv. What do you imagine she should have done, belt him and have a fit? What do you base your interpretation on?

The Dean

Fair enough - but the way she describes now how she felt then doesn't match the footage - point taken though.

al dente

The way it was reported ( I only say the Mail) was really odd. There were few direct quotes and the throwaway line of the flashbacks ruining her marriage was reported not quoted. However, a lot of sexual abuse victims try to pretend that what's happening isn't happening as it is, understandably, difficult to process very quickly. Utterly unqualified to know what she was thinking but I suspect it was on the line of WTAF, keep smiling at the camera my Mum's watching, WTAF, keep smiling, WTAF, what the hell just happened, was that real, keep smiling.

On the TMI alert, I've been attacked twice. First time did nothing about it and only told one girlfriend. I am still furious with myself for how passively accepted it but it seemed easier to just pretend it wasn't happening/ didn't happen. Second time, I punched my assailant on the jaw, someone else appeared and the idiot then ran around the corner, tried to attack someone else and was immediately arrested. That, although i was fine on the night, left me with a really odd reaction. I did things like sleepwalk and cover the tv and barricade my room at night, waking up with no real recollection. He hadn't even hurt me, just scared me, but it obviously made a deep impression.

I should imagine feeling violated and humiliated on live television, as a star struck excited young girl could have left some psychological trouble brewing behind, though I hope it was just shoddy reporting rather than real.

Sandboy

I saw her interview, she explained exactly what was going on, his right hand was up her kilt and she had nowhere to go, she tried but he was having none of it, watch again

my eldest lad asked me about this, he couldn't understand why nothing was done at the time. I tried to explain 70s Britain, our attitude to women and just what a saint / hero Savile was at the time. Millionaire celebrity who gave up his free time to work as a volunteer working with sick kids, evil bastard put on a great front

We've come a long way as a society, sometimes according to the daily Mail it appears too far but you'd like to think the chances of it happening now are greatly diminished

OleJanx

Trying to explain the Seventies is incredibly difficult. Kids look at you as if you are some kind of dinosaur, and just can't grasp how different things were. I mean, how do you explain that people like Jimmy Savile could get away with what he was doing mainly on the grounds of 'celebrity'

Yes, I know there are people like Jordan today, famous for being famous, but people like her are so in the public's eye that even the smallest gaff ends up on the front pages of the shit sheets.

Vanya

I suppose it could not go on at all in Britain now, but maybe in practically every other country in the world (except the USA) it goes on and is covered up or not talked about, as it was in the UK when we grew up. Only in Britain and the US does the compensation culture factor come into play

The Dean

I take your point about the TOTP footage, but I think you're over-simplifying how 'different' things were in the 70s. I became an adult in the mid-70s and neither I nor any of my mates would have done such a thing, not even at, say, a private party, or whatever. I also remember seeing a scumbag feeling up a girl's boobs outside a pub, thus giving me the excuse (and great pleasure) to beat the crap out of him. Most ordinary decent blokes back then would have done the same. Maybe it's the celebrity thing you mentioned - Savile et al felt they were immune to all of that stuff.

LaLaLayla

Things were very different in the 70s. Molestation of the sort experienced by the girl on TOTP was very common. As was her reaction. I had my fair share of unwanted attention from pervy, lecherous old men but I wouldn't have dreamed of 'making a fuss' by reporting it.

It wasn't just the blatant sexism that was tolerated, it was racism as well. I was quite an untidy child and I can remember my aunt used to say, "you need a little black boy running after you". I don't remember anyone challenging her for saying that, it seemed quite a normal thing to say at the time. I am not that old, things have changed enormously since then - thank goodness.

The 1970s... great music, great TV shows, great clothes... the rest of it was sh it.

Vanya

That expression (less polite than you quote) is very common here!

The Dean

Fair enough - but if I had been there when you received your 'fair share of unwanted attention' I'd have sorted him out - and so would every one of my mates.