Sometimes there are groups that need no introduction.

But for the record:

The Bonzo Dog Band explain “Noises for the Leg”  to Jimmy Savile, BBC December 28, 1969. Take one - lovely.
 

 
With thanks to the bi-ped Nellym!
 

 
Some would say that Sir Jimmy Savile always had a whiff of the unsavory about him. Before his death in 2011, there were plenty of rumors doing the rounds of the olde jingle-jangle jewelry master’s sexual peccadilloes, of which the most vicious was the allegation our sainted Jim enjoyed sexual congress with corpses at a local hospital. I first heard that story when I was at school in the 1970s, so you can imagine how ingrained these rumors became over the years.

Another, was Sir Jimmy’s alleged sexual shenanigans at various hospital locations throughout the U.K., the only consistent here was that the location changed and the depravity deepened with every re-telling.

What was never clear was why if these rumors had even a soupcon of fact they were never investigated by some tabloid journalist or ambitious Lestarde, who planned to put the cuffs on Sir Jim. Which is what one would expect, considering such high profile cases involving Gary Glitter, Jonathan King and even The Who’s Pete Townshend, over his dubious internet activity.

Which is why this week, I was surprised to hear that an unlikely source had come forward with allegations that Sir Jimmy had sex with under age girls during the 1970s. The source was the over sixties magazine, The Oldie, edited by former Private Eye chief Richard Ingrams.

The Oldie is usually filled with the chattering of baby boomers sharing tips on pensions, retirement plans, holidays, reports of memorial services and memories of the 1940s to 1960s when everything was hunky-dory with the world. It is not the kind of publication one would expect to find serious child sex allegations about popular TV celebrities. However, this week, Miles Goslett has done just that in his article, “Savile row”.

Goslett investigates why the BBC allegedly dropped a news report (for their current affairs show Newsnight), “investigating allegations of sexual abuse made against its long-serving employee Jimmy Savile?” Goslett explains that before Christmas the BBC broadcast two tribute programmes (one on TV, one on radio) that celebrated Savile’s life and career.

...No mention was made of the unsavoury rumours about Savile’s private life which had persisted throughout his career.

Before the BBC’s tributes were aired, however, journalists on the BBC2 programme Newsnight had been investigating the datk side of the apparently saintly entertainer. Their enquiries centred around Savile’s regular visits during the 1970s to Duncroft, an approved local authority school for emotional disturbed girls aged between 13 and 18 in Staines, Surrey, which closed in 1980. It emerged that in 2007 Surrey Police and the Crown Prosecution Service had investigated a historic complaint that Savile had abused girls at the school but no action had been take.

Newsnight tracked down several ex-Duncroft pupils, now middle-aged women, who confirmed that Savile had molested them when they were aged 14 or 15. At least one woman gave an on-camera, on-the-record interview to Newsnight about the abuse she had suffered.

As Goslett goes on to say, this was a coup by any standard. However, prior to the story being broadcast the story was dropped.
 
More on the allegations against Savile and the whole of Miles Goslett’s article, after the jump…
 

 
Sir Jimmy Savile’s Range Rover Carawagon is up for sale, with an estimated price of between £11,000-£16,000 ($17,000-$24,000). The vehicle is described as a:

‘...first-generation Range Rover was produced between 1970 and 1996. The original car was not designed as a luxury-type 4x4; whilst certainly up-market compared to preceding Land Rover models, the early Range Rovers had fairly basic, utilitarian interiors with vinyl seats and plastic dashboards that were designed to be washed down with a hose. Convenience features such as power assisted steering, carpeted floors, air conditioning, cloth/leather seats and wooden interior trim were fitted later. The Carawagon was a Land Rover approved special vehicle, built by Searle of Sunbury-on-Thames.’

Of interest to future biographers of the legendary DJ, TV host and marathon runner, is the conversions made to Sir Jimmy’s Carawagon:

‘Only very few Range Rovers were converted; probably due to the price of £3040 compared to £2450 for a 109 conversion with 4 beds, although they were still available in sales lists until 1980. Carawagon closed down in the mid-1980s.

This 1978 Range Rover Carawagon was ordered and supplied to Sir Jimmy Savile OBE, KCSG, disc jockey and television presenter, to aid him with his charity work, so when necessary he was able to remain on site and live at the location of the project. The vendor believes that this Range Rover spent much time parked at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, an institution that benefitted hugely from Jimmy’s patronage. Finished in white, this Carawagon is fitted with a double bed, and comes with a wash basin fitted between the front seats and curtains.’

For indeed this may have been one of Sir Jimmy’s infamous “passion wagons”, in which he would get friendly with his fans.

The story of his passion wagon was a bone of contention with Sir Jimmy, when he was confronted by a TV audience of pesky kids, desperate to find out if the stories of his having sex with young fans in the back of his “nookie mobile” were true?

This happened on the BBC youth series Open to Question in 1989, where celebrities, from the world’s of entertainment, politics or sport, were quizzed by an audience of primed pupils from schools across the U.K. It was their job to pose those difficult questions grown-ups never did. And it was my job, as the show’s researcher, to ensure they were asked. For this I had to write a mini-biography for each guest, highlighting areas of interest for these youngsters to probe.

Guests ranged from royalty, Princess Anne, to entertainers, Ben Elton, Stephen Fry, to politicians Neil Kinnock, and Senator Gary Hart (who was asked about fucking-up his Presidential ambitions through his association with Donna Rice).

So, the week Sir Jimmy (or plain Jimmy O.B.E., “old big ‘ead” as he joked back then) appeared on Open to Question, our band of keen interrogators asked the great man if the stories about his sex life and his means of seduction, the passion wagon (which had been described as a Bedford van with a mattress in the back) were true?

The great, shell-suited Mr Fixit didn’t like the tone of the questions and said he thought the youngsters had been put up to mischief by asking such. Well, in a way they had. But that was the program’s policy. The information the youngsters used had been taken from the great man’s autobiography and from published interviews. Thinking he was being set up, Sir Jimmy avoided the question. Yet, after the cameras were turned off, and the producer David Martin and myself made our way down from the gallery to the studio floor, Sir Jimmy started to answering impromptu questions from the audience. Whether he was telling the truth or, maintaining a myth, when asked again about his “passion wagon,” Jimmy Savile admitted he did have a passion wagon and that all the stories about his sexual shenanigans with young fans were true. This announcement seemed to endear Savile to the teenage inquisitors. Why, I don’t know. David Martin then turned to me and said, ‘I knew we should have kept the cameras rolling.’

The question now, is whether this particular Carawagon was one of Sir Jimmy’s vehicles of pleasure? If you’re interested in buying Sir Jimmy Savile’s Range Rover Carawagon, you check details here for further details.

As for Open to Question, Sir Jimmy went to the press (the Daily Express) and complained about the show being a fix, after he spoke to our born-again PA who ‘fessed up everything. Not that there was much for her to ‘fess up.
 

 

 
More pix of Sir Jim’s ‘Carawagon’, after the jump…
 

 
The legendary disc jockey, TV presenter and charity fund-raiser, Sir Jimmy Savile has died at the age of 84, at his home in Leeds, England.

Savile who was a major star of British TV and radio, was best known as host of Top of the Pops from the 1960s-2006, and his own highly successful show Jim’ll Fix It, where Savile fixed it for selected viewers to have their dreams come true. At its height the show received over 20,000 letters a week, asking to have their dreams fulfilled.

Savile with his distinct blonde hair, clunky jewelry, track suit and trademark cigar, was a genuine maverick and one-off. Born on 31 October 1926, Savile was widely acknowledged as the world’s first disc jockey, pioneering the use of twin-turntables, and continuous play “discos” during the 1940s and 1950s.

He was a Bevin Boy during the Second World War, conscripted as a coal miner, Savile worked down the pit at the South Kirkby Colliery, West Yorkshire. After the war he continued deejaying, and also took up a career as a wrestler, which, at one point, made him the highest paid wrestler in the world. He later claimed wrestling led to his breaking every bone in his body.

During the 1950s, Savile continued with music and ran several clubs throughout England, bringing rock and pop music to generations of youngsters.

By the 1960s, Savile was the most visible and best known disc jockey on radio and TV, promoting Beat, R’n’B, Motown, Northern Soul, Heavy Metal and Glam Rock over the years.

Apart from music, Savile worked tirelessly for charity, running over 200 marathons, and raising £40 million.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

Jarvis Cocker meets legendary ‘Top of the Pops’ DJ Jimmy Savile

 
Jimmy Savile has been a pop culture icon in England since the early 1960s when he was a host on BBC TV’s “Top Of The Pops,”  NME Awards presenter and Radio One deejay. Savile’s pimpalicious fashion sense, platinum page boy, monumental cigar and ego converge in a larger than life character that is both charming and a wee bit appalling.

Jarvis Cocker presents his top ten rules for making the perfect television pop show. Rule number 8: Get Jimmy Savile. From British TV series “Favouritism.” As Savile blows hard, Cocker is like a sail in a hurricane.