Jimmy Savile

I am reading Alfie Boe's autobiography which was published before all this came to light.
In one chapter he writes of the naming ceremony of the Queen Victoria in Southampton dock. He and his wife were staying overnight on the boat and met Jimmy Savile sitting in an armchair on his own.
Savile said to Alfie's wife, "You're a pretty girl, aren't you. Come and sit on my knee," right in front of Alfie Boe.
He wrote it was cool to meet him, but weird when he started flirting with his wife. The next morning at breakfast Savile just scowled at them when Alfie said it was nice to meet him.
I wonder what Alfie Boe thinks now. It made me squirm to read it.

I wondered when the rumours about Cyril Smith would surface. There have been murmurings for many years. But who knows...

Sigmund Freud chose not to believe his patients when they told him of sexual abuse. He constructed a complicated theory about childhood sexuality so that he could assert that it was all in the fevered imaginations of girls with an "oedipus complex". He influenced psychiatry immensely.

The Cyril Smith murmurings were rife in Rochdale. Police did question him, but no action was taken againsst him. He admitted smacking boys on the bare bottoms when he had a hostel, claiming it was to make them get in the bath. I can't think of a single circumstance in which that would be necessary, and if boys only needed motivating to get in the bath themselves, why would he even need to be present when they were undressing?

There were some people for whom Cyril could do no wrong - I was not one of them. Some of his opinions were far from liberal (with or without a capital letter).

Oh good grief. Dave Lee Travis has been arrested next.

Apparently is is not in connection with the Jimmy Savile enquiry.

Not directly connected with JS but he is being investigated as one of several others named.

The DT headline said "as part of the J S sex probe" but in the actual article it said that paedophilia was not involved - he is accused of putting a hand up a 17 yr olds skirt in the 70s or 80s and something similar with another young woman. He says he is "genuinely surprised that allegations of this nature have been made" and he "totally refutes any impropriety"

Seems to me that the police are just going for the easy targets!
I just hope they are working on the paedophiles too.

Good grief, if I brought charges against every chap that put his hand up my skirt during the 70's & 80's...........

tell us more phoenix.

Neither the time nor the place, methinks j05

Whoops! Have I done it again?!

I'm really sick of all this murky stuff now. My head is going under a virtual duvet till it all goes away.

I know victims need closure, but they can do it without me reading about it.

Anno, I`m afraid that years ago I was one of those for whom Cyril Smith could do no wrong. I have very fond memories of him coming to our school Christmas carol service every year in Rochdale Town Hall, and seeing the 2 reserved chairs in the front row. I never heard any rumours about him until fairly recently, and was so disappointed and upset by them, never would have thought in a million years that such a thing could happen.

We had a local GP and a solicitor who were always doing it! Both dead.

phoenix I agree. We just used to tell them to get lost.

bookdreamer have to agree - groping and the like were not unheard of in the 60s and 70s in most work places - assume DJs were a little over ego-ed and thought they were God's gift to women. doubt that any woman has not been 'molested' in this way and I have to say it does not traumatise you for life. Children and hospital patients are an entirely different case and the perpetrators deserve to have the book thrown at them.
it all seems to much akin to a witch hunt

Exactly Phoenix and * bookdreamer*

Actually it was the (mid - late) 60s for me, but my skirts were so short anyway......

I think that it is so difficult to extract the real harm that youngsters suffered as a result of paedophile activity and the sexual fumblings of over ego-ed celebs and the 'groupies' who were flattered and keen to get involved.

I agree that some girls, with hindsight may regret what happened, but different to those youngsters who were not looking for anything sexual at all.

I was always able to tell men to 'p*iss off', even when I was only a teenager, but I know some women who are put under pressure by their boss and one friend lost a good job because she wouldn't agree to the advances of her line manager. He gave her a very poor assessment which was totally undeserved, but she felt too demoralised to fight it.

Yes greatnan - a lot of that goes on. I was talking the other day to someone who worked in the BBC (as a freelance) and she found herself locked in the photocopier room with a randy manager. She's a big girl and she sorted him out - but....she is a freelance and it would be very simple for him to use someone else next time and freeze her out of lots of future work.

Ella46 I agree that the police seem to be going for the easier targets.

Boorish, ill-mannered creeps groping girls lower down the pecking-order at work, and celebrities taking advantage of teenagers is one thing - as gross as that is, is far removed from sadistic housemasters, priests, fathers, step-fathers who are systematically sexually abusing young children over many years.

The problem is it is very difficult to assess how some one will be affected by an event. A few years ago I was juror in a trial of historic 'sex abuse'. the girl was only 8 when it happened and it involved one brief non-penetrative grope and briefly showing pornographic magazines to this girl, plus another girl reported exposure and again being briefly shown pornographic magazines. There was no suggestion that anything more had happened or been repeated and it was clear the police had trawled very extensively for further victims and found none.

It was obvious from the evidence that the child in the first instance, now a young woman of about 30, had been deeply traumatised by the event and as jurors talking outside the jury room we concluded that the case had possibly arisen because the girl had sought counselling and Counsellors are obliged to report sex abuse to the police.. Yet having had similar brief and not repeated experiences as a child, I was unaffected by them and my daughter, who was similar in age to the girl was unable to understand why someone should have been so traumatised by what she considered was a relatively minor event. But the fact was that one child was severely traumatised by what might only temporarily puzzle or distress another child.