Rolf Harris is dead

I was surprised his wife and daughter seemed to have stayed close to him.

Clawdy

I was surprised his wife and daughter seemed to have stayed close to him.

and now comes the will

The predatory nature of men - some men - was IMO largely tolerated and accepted to an extent back in the late 50s / 60s / 70s.

I worked indirectly for a man who had a known penchant for being over-familiar with young women in the company where I worked. He was, in fact, married to a woman many years his junior - and was admired by other men in the company for that fact.

When I complained to my own 'boss' about this man, I was told, patronisingly, that he was just "being friendly". I knew that simply was not the case. He exploited his position to prey on young women.

Knowing that my boss had a young daughter whom he idolised - partly because she was a much-longed-for child after many years of marriage - I asked my boss (I was quite bold in those days) if he would feel comfortable with his daughter being fondled by this particular man. He just went red in he face, and walked off. Whether he was angry at my impertinence or ashamed, I've no idea.

Thank goodness we don't tolerate this kind of behaviour now.

The Gill statue outside the BBC - replace it with another.
Change the logos. All prominent.

Not sure about village cultures up and down the country.

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Any sexual assault on a child is abhorrent regardless of someones entertainment value. In 1963 at the age of 6 months old I was placed into foster care. The male foster parent sexually molested nearly every woman and child including myself that he come in contact with. Eventually in the late 1970's I ran away. I tried many times to expose him but his family was complicit in protecting him. These people are incredibly devious and manipulative.
The long term mental trauma is enormous and touches SO many aspects of your life almost daily. Now even at 60 I have times of depression stemming from a lost frightened childhood.

As a child I used to love watching Rolf Harris and Willoughby. I would not believe what was being said about him for a long time. Very sad for a man who brought so much pleasure in his art works.

Oasthhouse I feel your pain.

Oasthouse So sorry to read this.

Oasthouse-
I'm so sorry to read about your past -enduring sexual abuse .

It's sickening that you
were powerless in exposing him .
And now the ever present trauma over it all these years later .

Sending you hugs and prayers .

Oasthouse it's a life sentence for victims.

I felt totally disgusted by the news Rolf Harris was a paedophile and I’m not sorry that he’s dead or, particularly, that he suffered. But I did like him as an entertainer, can’t rewrite history, and I’m glad my DM & DMiL aren’t here to see this as they both loved and admired him. No league table of abusers, a paedophile is a paedophile is a paedophile.

Oasthouse I'm so sorry to hear of your terrible experience.
People who do such things, or protect those who do, are completely beyond my understanding.

While as a child I admired Rolf Harris as a children's entertainer, even then there was something about him I didn't like, but couldn't put a finger on it! Didn't like Jimmy Saville either.

I would happily give all pedophiles a lethal injection, I would never listen to his or Gary glitters songs ever again

As an Australian I was always rather embarrassed by Rolf Harris' tacky and contrived Aussie vernacular performances long before the real horror story of sexual abuse emerged. He was always a second rate performer in every way but I do feel for his family and the terrible legacy and burden that they will carry for the rest of their lives.

I wouldn’t remove the Gill statue or ban Wagner operas. Once we start editing art, music etc according to the private lives of the artists we will be left with a greatly impoverished art scene. We may not approve of their private lives, but sometimes they hold the key to understanding the art, though sometimes they are so separate as to be irrelevant.

No matter how good he was as an entertainer, just damaging one child is enough for me to say I am glad he is dead. You can seem like a nice person and be completely depraved. As some will know, I have a member of family in prison at the moment for abusing a child and he was over 80 when it came out. I can't bear to see a picture of him let alone give him his familial title; neither can anyone else in our family except his wife who believes he is a good man who made a bad mistake. Personally I think she is completely deluded and I agree with silverlining48 that paedophiles don't just start offending later in life so I dread to think what could crawl out of the woodwork.
A perpetrator doesn't just ruin the lives of the children they abuse (although they are the hardest hit) but it destroys the lives of their parents and wider family. You start to look back at the times you have allowed your small children to be with them and realise that the apparent interest in them was so much darker than you thought. It is quite horrible. No, there is no hierarchy with paedophilia.

A relative of mine lived for some time in Scarborough - Savile also had a home there and was linked to a businessman, also from the area.

I can remember her daughter looking for a Saturday job and being offered one by the business owner - a number of people living locally warned her not to allow this and to keep her away from this particular man and Savile - this was in the 80's.

It's not only the crimes that horrify, it's those who were complicit....they allowed it and I hope they suffer for what they did.

He lived not far from me when I was a child and used the local Catholic Church! Little didn’t we know what a sinner he was!!
Why oh why when someone like this trundles off down below, hopefully, do they give him so much airspace!!

No degrees of pedophilia, no degrees of being a domestic abuser, any victim is one too many, but we might all think that someone who ends up murdering his wife might have a priority first class ticket to hell and a special place full of whatever torment awaits him.
RH was unrepentent, he reckons he was hard done by. His victims would still be scarred for life if he'd repented of his actions spontaneously and we'll no way to make recompense, but the b***d was found guilty and even then showed no remorse or understanding
As for censoring of music or art or films....
I don't think any of his songs will go down in the annals of great music never to be forgotten to be honest. How many old. Music hall songs are regularly sung nowadays, including ones that are much better than his
How far do we go with censorship of works which have a life of their own away from the person who created them. Picasso was vile towards most of the women his life for example. How do we know that many of the great artists and composers and writers both in recent and more distant ages never did things like he did or were rapists or abusers. Or even serial adulterers. There is a line to be drawn obviously and it would. Be different in each situation. If you were Jewish you'd not want to play music by known antisemites such as Wagner, there are lots of other works by other composers. Eric Gill, let's not boycott a typeface just cost he did what he did, rename it, let his name become a footnote in the history of the typeface. I personally can appreciate his artwork but would not for example if there was one visit a museum dedicated to him. I recently went to an exhibition which had a work by him and was able to look on it as an artwork, for me it is just far enough in the past to be able to do that. I think you have to remember what happened so you don't end up inadvertently glorifying wronguns in years to come. The colston statue was put up many years after his death by people who only remembered his philanthropy not how he a massed his wealth for example. The hall was so called in tribute to him, so must be renamed, that sort of thing
History is very important, and we should draw lessons from it. Hopefully nowadays with safeguarding being taken more seriously there will be no more such pedophiles coming along. There may be some yet undiscovered obviously and I hope that they are brought to justice.

Interfere with 1 child or 50, they are still monsters and deserve to be jailed for life (IMO).

Yet another name added to the long list of "idols with feet of clay". It also adds to the long-lasting and largely unresolved debate as to whether or not an artist's personal failings or even despicable sins, once revealed, then somehow devalue the artistic merit of their work. I suspect that there is most certainly a negative reassessment in the short term, but as time passes, perhaps the sins fade somewhat, as the art reasserts its intrinsic appeal. Examples from history are Wagner, champion of the Aryan master race myth; Caravaggio, a pimp and a murderer; Cellini, a multiple murderer; Picasso, a receiver of ancient Iberian statues stolen from the Louvre, and also a raging misogynist; Francis Bacon, allegedly a life-long sexual predator and sado-masochist; Gaugin, paedophile who left his wife and children destitute to travel to Tahiti, where he took three child brides, two aged 14 and one aged 13, and gave all of them syphilis; Percy Grainger, Australian composer, white supremacist and anti-Semite; Degas, rabid racist and anti-Semite; and those are just a few of the many famous names whose art continues to sell for multi-millions. As for Rolf Harris, yes, despicable crimes, but perhaps rather small beer in terms of his contribution to "the arts". Can't imagine that many will be that interested in any future rehabilitation of his work.

Sad that a convicted criminal gets so much press time….front page news…..abysmal.

People must have known and said nothing.