WEBVTT - Part One: Jimmy Saville: Britain's Unending Nightmare 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:03.720 All media. 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:07.760 Hey everybody, Robert here and the International Academy of Digital 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:11.280 Arts and Sciences have announced that three different Cool Zone 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:14.920 media shows have been nominated for awards at the thirtieth 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.960 annual Webby Awards. You can vote on these now if 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.680 you just google the name of the podcast and the category. 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:26.760 Behind the Bastards nominated in the Experimental and Innovation Podcasts category. 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:29.840 It Could Happen Here is in the News and Politics 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:34.879 Podcasts category, and James Stout's mini series Migrating to America 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:37.800 A Dream Worth Dying For has been nominated in the 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:41.960 Podcasts Documentary category. And you can find links to vote 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:45.599 for each of these podcasts in the episode description and 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:48.159 in the posts on social media for episodes that It 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:57.120 Could Happen Here and Behind the Bastards, Thank you. Welcome 0:00:57.160 --> 0:00:59.880 back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast about the very 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.960 worst people in all of history. I'm Robert Evans. 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:05.080 What were you saying? 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:06.000 I couldn't hear you. 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:08.120 I was just so this book. 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:10.399 Oh is that a copy of Girl Gone Wild by 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:13.640 Courtney Cosak? Oh man, I'm excited to read that myself. 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:15.959 I wish we could get Courtney on the show. 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:17.479 I'm here I'm here. 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.640 Oh. I probably could have told that by looking at 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:23.360 my screen at any point in time, but I never do. 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.160 Welcome to the podcast, Courtney. How are you doing today? 0:01:26.480 --> 0:01:29.400 I'm good. Thank you for having me excited to be back. 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:31.119 So your book is coming out. 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:35.520 That's exciting, it's exciting, it's nerve wracking. Yeah, it's all 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:36.720 the things. It's really great. 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:38.640 So I haven't finished it yet, but it's really good 0:01:38.680 --> 0:01:39.080 so far. 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:41.800 You want to up top here plug what your book 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:45.320 is before we get into the subject of our episodes 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:46.240 for this in next week. 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:47.240 Yeah. 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:52.360 It is an unwitting feminist coming of age about trying 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:53.560 to make it in Hollywood. 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:55.000 It's called Girl Gone Wild. 0:01:55.160 --> 0:02:00.800 It's about all the mistakes quote unquote I've made. 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.200 Yeah, well, and about like your time working for Girls 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:07.400 Gone Wild, which you've talked about on our show a 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:12.000 couple of times in the past, and unfortunately it's gonna 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:13.880 be kind of relevant to these episodes. Do you know 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:14.919 who we're doing this week? 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:18.519 Did Sophie inform you no. 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:23.079 No good good? What do you know about Jimmy Savill? Oh? 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.800 Okay, vaguely, I thought you were about to say Joe Francis. 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:31.120 No, no, no, no, no, no, I was not saying 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:35.040 anything about Joe Francis, but we're talking about Jimmy Saville, 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:40.000 who was a I mean he was everything in UK 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:42.960 pop culture for quite a while, right, Like he started 0:02:43.000 --> 0:02:45.560 out as a DJ, he became like a television star 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:49.440 and he was ultimately just famous for being extremely famous 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.280 and being the guy who was like always on TV 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:56.120 if you grew up in the UK from like really 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:00.600 the mid seventies up through the late nineties, Like he 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:04.360 was the face of the BBC. Do you know anything 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:05.000 about this guy? 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:06.120 Is he raunch? 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:10.320 The first thing that came to mind was like the 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:16.320 stories about you know, Robert Plant Sticking or Jimmy Page. 0:03:16.440 --> 0:03:18.480 But did he have any connection with those bands? 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:22.520 Yes, he was connected to every band that was big 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:24.960 in the sixties and seventies, pretty much like there are 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:29.120 very few major pop musicians from that, Like I think 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:31.000 people tend to call it like the golden era of 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:33.680 pop music, of rock and roll and whatnot. There's almost 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:36.160 no one that he wasn't connected to, from like Elvis 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:39.320 up through the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Like he knew 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:43.600 all of those guys, and you know it didn't necessarily 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:46.640 wasn't necessarily in good with all of them, but because 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:49.440 of his position as like Britain's top DJ, like he 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.400 was connected to all those dudes. We're hearing some stories 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:57.720 about those people, but this guy, Jimmy Saville is probably 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:01.720 the number one request I get from British listeners is like, 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.280 you need to do Jimmy Savell. And I've noticed that 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:08.560 Americans tend to be either completely unaware of this guy 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.280 or they only kind of heard a couple of things, 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:13.480 and most of what they heard is that after he died, 0:04:13.880 --> 0:04:16.600 it came out that he'd been a massive pedophile for years. Right, 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:19.880 this is a guy now committed sex crimes on like 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:25.320 an industrial scale. He's kind of in some ways, he's 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:27.680 kind of like the British Jeffrey Epstein, or at least 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:30.600 he's like one of the guys you could accuse of 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:35.520 being that. But this is you know, when I first, 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:37.720 because I didn't know much about Jimmy Saville, I think 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.360 I was kind of vaguely aware that he had existed, 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.040 and then you know, he dies in twenty twelve, it 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:46.120 comes out that all there are all these allegations of 0:04:46.160 --> 0:04:50.240 horrible sex crimes he'd committed. And when I started reading it. Initially, 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:52.599 it was always framed as like and no one knew 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.160 he kept it a secret his whole life. It was this, 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:58.160 you know, there was no way anyone could have realized that, 0:04:58.279 --> 0:05:01.240 like the whole time he was this famous powerbroker in 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:04.039 the music industry and and you know British television, he 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:06.320 was also abusing women and boys. 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:06.960 Uh. 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.240 And what's really interesting to me is that, like that's 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:14.359 all bullshit. It was entirely obvious the whole time, he 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:18.120 like bragged about it. There were numerous interviews where he 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.360 talked about at least aspects of his behavior, Like there 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:24.640 actually was never any excuse for people to be surprised 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.800 that Jimmy Saffle was a massive sex best. I mean, 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:30.480 we'll pull up some photos of him later, but I 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:33.480 hate to be like, oh, that guy looks like a pedophile, 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:35.800 but Jimmy Savile was the most that guy looks like 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:38.880 a pedophile pedophile in the history of fucking pedophiles. 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:41.320 Oh, I can't wait to see. 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:44.599 Yeah, I feel like, I mean, there was so much 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.599 of that in this era too, Like yep, in Woody 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:50.719 Allen films where he's like dating a seventeen year olds 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:53.479 or and that's like not even considered bad. 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.279 Well, no, and it's one of the things I will 0:05:57.400 --> 0:05:59.440 I will be using both the terms like when we 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:01.520 talk about what he did, like had sex with, and 0:06:01.560 --> 0:06:05.280 the terms molested or raped, because it's often unclear. The 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.800 age of consent in the UK is sixteen, so him 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.240 having sex with a sixteen year old is not inherently 0:06:12.320 --> 0:06:15.280 legally rape in the society that he's doing it, right, Like, 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:17.400 we can have the opinion it's not that that we have, 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.040 but that's part of what camouflage is this and at 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:25.320 the start of the pop industry there's a lot of people, 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.719 including probably most of the musicians from this era whose 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:33.920 music you like, who had sex with teenage girls, sometimes 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:36.599 illegally because there were a lot of twelve thirteen, fourteen 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.400 year olds got in there, but often very legally because 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.200 again the age of consent was like sixteen, right, And 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.640 you know this is there is an element of at 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:48.760 the start of his crimes, this was a really different 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.960 time and the moral values around that were a lot different. 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:56.159 Were part of what happens with Jimmy is that the 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.560 period in which he gets famous and has starts getting 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:02.520 access to all these teenage girls is also the period 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:06.000 in which birth control becomes like, like particularly the pill 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:10.320 becomes normalized. Right. So there's just this explosion in people 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.960 fucking right that's based on Oh, suddenly, there's no consequences 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:17.200 to it. That doesn't really get like curtailed until the 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:21.920 AIDS crisis, right. And so part of what's interesting to 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:23.920 me is that this is not just a guy who 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:26.880 is this This is part of the story here, is 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:29.400 this is a guy who kind of comes of age 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.000 as a famous person during that era where it's really 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:36.240 easy for men at a certain level of fame to 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.280 have access to a lot of teenage girls and quote 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:42.280 unquote consequence free. It's not consequence free. There's a lot 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.600 of people that he harms permanently, but that's the way 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:48.480 it's seen widely. And then he has to figure out 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.800 a way once that era ends and wants his kind 0:07:51.840 --> 0:07:54.600 of fame as dj in is to continue having access 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:59.840 to people of that age, and that's when that's when 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.400 he goes from a really gross guy in an industry 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:06.160 filled with gross guys who all did very similar gross 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:10.760 things to a unique kind of predator. Right. And that's 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:15.400 the story of Jimmy Sapple. Margaret Thatcher is also heavily involved. 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.440 Oh my god, how old is he in this b 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:22.640 side of the story when he gets really creepy, I 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:23.640 mean beyond. 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:25.600 He's pretty creepy the whole time, but like in his 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.600 it's like in his forties and on that like things 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:32.120 start to get really that he gets that he kind 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:37.640 of a balls in a unique way. Because a lot 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.160 of what's interesting to me about this case is that 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.640 Savile's not just abusive to individuals, and he is, but 0:08:43.760 --> 0:08:48.160 he he's like he's grooming institutions in including the BBC 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.520 and most of the major hospitals in the United Kingdom, 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.480 in order to get access to victims after a certain point. 0:08:54.720 --> 0:09:08.400 But I'm getting ahead of myself. Yeah, all right, yeah, 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:13.400 let's let's start the story. James Wilson Vincent Saville was 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:17.640 born on Halloween night, October thirty first and nineteen twenty six, 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:20.120 fucking Halloween, like just. 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:22.720 Perfect. 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:27.440 Yeah. His hometown was named consort Terrace, which Wikipedia informs 0:09:27.480 --> 0:09:29.920 me is in the Burley area of Leeds in the 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:33.760 West Riding of Yorkshire. Because for whatever reason, people on 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:36.640 that island cannot give normal place names to places like 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:41.239 fucking hey, British people here's a town name for you, Pittsburgh, 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:45.000 Pennsylvania see williams Aras. That's how place name should sound. 0:09:45.000 --> 0:09:46.400 I don't know what the fuck you guys have been 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:50.560 doing over there, but it's not just bitches. Yeah, oh no. 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:52.679 He's in the Burley area of Leeds in the West 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:55.200 Riding of Yorkshire. To fuck you guys, come on with 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:58.680 your JR token bullshit here, get out, give it a 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:05.680 normal name. I'm sorry British people, but also I'm not so. 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:08.640 In his own autobiography, which was published under both the 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.440 titles As It Happens and Love Is an Uphill Thing, 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:17.920 Jimmy writes, Yeah, Jimmy writes this of his own birth. 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:21.480 Some babies are born strong, some weak. Being the youngest 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:23.920 of seven, it would appear that my father's last effort 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:27.080 was lacking in the juices of strength. Eyewitnesses habit that 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.880 I was born sound asleep. He's a sickly kid, right, 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:34.040 and his family members, people who knew the family around 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:36.920 that time, confirmed that he was you know, ill as 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:41.000 a child and suffered from regular health problems. He exaggerates 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:46.040 these as part of his personal mythos and narrative. For 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:48.560 his part, Sapple claims that he nearly died when he 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:50.880 was two years old, and was so sick that a 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:53.600 priest was brought in to administer last rites while his 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:58.120 mother prayed feverishly to a then unconfirmed saint, Margaret Sinclair, 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:01.600 and like things were so bad, the doctor just like 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:03.720 leaves at one point and says, just tell me when 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:06.040 he dies, and I'll fill in the death certificate the 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.160 rest of the way. I don't want to keep coming 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:12.800 back here. At one point, his relatives think that he's 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.600 actually passed on, and his grandmother does like the old 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:17.600 timy thing where you hold a mirror up to his 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:21.679 tiny mouth to see if he's breathing. And in his 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.200 book and in numerous interviews over the years, Saville took 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:26.960 great pleasure in delivering the punchline to this joke, which 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:29.800 is that as she puts the mirror down, he pisses, 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.720 hitting his grandmother in the eye, and this story improving 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:37.320 He's alive right. This story is a foundational part of 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:39.840 the Savile myth, and in his own autobiography he follows 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:43.920 it with this very strange passage, hardened by my urinary 0:11:44.000 --> 0:11:47.040 success of catching my grandmother fair and square, I continued 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.680 in my infancy to pee on anything or anyone who 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:53.040 unwarily came into range. And my first recorded applause were 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:56.440 for direct hits on guests, fires, tea tables, priests, and 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:59.640 other such targets. I wasn't very popular for a number 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:03.800 of years. That's weird. That's just an odd thing to say. 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:08.719 It is interesting how early, even in his autobiography when 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:11.600 he's you know, he's a children's entertainer and to a 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:15.280 major extent, right, but he's he's writing to such an 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:17.400 extent about like his penis. 0:12:17.559 --> 0:12:17.760 You know. 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:22.000 Again, there's a lot of in these in his autobiographies, 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:25.240 and the things he'll say, he will tell like eighty 0:12:25.320 --> 0:12:27.880 or ninety percent of the truth. He doesn't quite go 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:31.120 all the way, but you he focuses a lot on 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:33.679 stuff to where like people should have known this is 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:35.960 a guy with a weird fascination with his penis and 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:38.480 like what it's doing. And it'll get a lot more. 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:41.280 He'll talk a lot more, obviously about actual at least 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.160 obviously he's not talking about sex crimes here. But it 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:47.040 is weird the degree to which he focuses on this 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:50.320 in as he's talking about himself as a two year 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:55.600 old now his mother. Jimmy's mother, Agnes, gives a very 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:58.480 different account of his infant illness. When she was interviewed 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:02.320 in nineteen seventy in Plane Sight by Dan Davies. She 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.120 recalled the illness struck when Jimmy was two and a half. 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:07.280 My oldest daughter had him out in the pram and 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:10.120 stopped at a shop, leaving Jimmy outside. He was strapped 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.319 in but jumped about so much that the pram overturned 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:14.320 and the hood caught the back of his neck and 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:17.720 severed one of the muscles. And that's a completely different story. 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:20.680 He's not like a sick kid who's dying and you 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:23.439 in bed or whatever. He's like a kid who has 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.360 an injury, a pretty normal kind of injury. Pram falls 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:28.720 over and he gets a muscle that's severed, and the 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:32.559 injury heals badly. Jimmy can't sit up or properly shut 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:35.280 his eyes for six months, even while sleeping. He was 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.520 admitted to the hospital. Yeah, it's really a scary thing 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:41.840 if you're the parents he's admitted to the hospital, who 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:43.839 are like, we don't really know what to do. You know, 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:46.160 there might be we could try surgery, but we don't 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:48.720 know if that'll actually work, and his family says, no, 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.280 we don't want to like risk that. On the way 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:54.160 back from the hospital, Agnes stops briefly to pray at 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.280 a cathedral, and then later that day, Jimmy goes to 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:00.600 sleep and closes his eyes, which initially I verifies the 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:03.199 family because they think he's died because he hadn't been 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:05.840 closing his eyes. But he was actually fine. The injury 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:09.520 had just finally healed. Right. That's a much less dramatic story, 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:11.920 where like in we all we were clustered around. Then 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:14.280 they put the mirror up to see if he was 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:16.719 still breathing. No, he had a weird injury and they 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:18.880 were scared because when he closed his eyes they thought 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:19.720 he was dead, but he was. 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:23.680 So it's not both. It's one was a lie and the. 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:24.520 One is a lie. 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:25.040 Okay. 0:14:25.520 --> 0:14:28.000 I can't think of why Agnes would have lied about this. 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.880 I can think of a lot of reasons why Jimmy would. Now. 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:35.160 Agnes did later write to the Catholic Church urging for 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:38.520 the beatification of Margaret Sinclair. But again, this is just 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:42.560 a very different story. His family was very poor growing up, 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:46.280 although not unusually, they were like the normal level of 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:48.360 poor for the town that they lived in. So it's 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.400 not like he was the poor kid in town and 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:53.680 had to watch all of these other kids who had more. 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:57.200 It was this is England in like the twenties and thirties, 0:14:57.240 --> 0:14:59.800 and he lives in like the north, in a mining town. 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:05.000 Everybody's broke, nobody has money. Then yeah, now again, he 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:07.640 was the youngest of seven and he was an accident. 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.400 His mom's like forty when she has him, which is 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:15.320 I mean, that's an old pregnancy today, especially in like 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.960 the twenties, that's fairly uncommon. And he was dubbed. He 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:23.320 claims the family's not again child. That's the term he 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:25.440 uses of like they were like, ah, this was we 0:15:25.480 --> 0:15:29.000 really can't ever let this happen again. And he's going 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:31.360 to grow up with a chip on his shoulder about this. 0:15:31.480 --> 0:15:34.880 He was never very close to most of his older siblings, 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:37.560 and he will later become a mama's boy in a 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:40.160 deeply weird way. We're not really going to talk about 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:43.760 it enough in these episodes, but he's like veering towards 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:49.000 Patrick Bates levels of like very strange mom issues. But 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:51.520 initially he feels like he's ignored, like he doesn't get 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:55.480 a lot of attention, And he'll write about this both 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.440 as if it frustrated him, and also he'll talk about like, 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:00.560 and I really like that because I'm a loner and 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:02.800 this really worked out for me. I like not getting 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:06.120 a lot of attention. I can't tell which is coping 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.680 and which is the truth. That said, his other family 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:13.000 members don't seem to agree that he was ignored and 0:16:13.080 --> 0:16:16.720 not given a lot of attention. His sister Joan actually 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:18.760 says that she and the rest of the family consider 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:21.400 Jimmy their miracle baby, and that he was kind of 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:24.000 fond over by all of his older siblings and everyone 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.280 else in the family because he'd had health issues as 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:30.320 a kid. Right, And Davies points out in his book 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:34.080 about Savel that while Saville preferred to portray himself as 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:36.840 the not again baby, as this kid that wasn't wanted 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:39.760 and was kind of ignored, his family insists that he 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:43.560 was treated as the miracle child, the chosen one, right, 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:47.960 which makes a lot more sense based on his subsequent behavior. 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:52.320 Yeah, some people cannot get enough attention, Like there's no 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:53.400 an endless hole. 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:56.360 And it's interesting to me that he feels a need 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.240 to like lie about this, to complain, to be like, oh, 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:00.840 and they didn't even really they want me. You know, 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:02.960 I had to deal with the fact that I didn't 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.720 really belong, whereas his family's like, no, we were obsessed 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:10.720 with him because he nearly died. Now. Jimmy's father, Vince, 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:13.280 was a tall and gangly man who never made a 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:16.560 lot of money, but was employed consistently and seems to 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:20.680 have been like a pretty responsible parent, although not necessarily 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:24.000 in a what you'd call the reputable industry. His boss 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:27.360 was the town bookie, a guy named jim Windsor, who 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:30.560 young Jimmy seems to have grown up admiring Windsor wants 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:32.919 bragged to a newspaper that he'd been arrested once a 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:37.280 year for twenty years. So his dad's he's Jimmy grows 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:41.240 up connected to at least a low level organized crime. 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:43.880 You know. This guy is running like numbers, rackets and stuff, 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.159 and his dad is kind of his gopher. But his 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:50.200 dad's also not a big wig. His dad is handling 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:54.159 like very basic jobs for this guy, like he's so 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:57.399 Jimmy sees this dude who is like kind of the 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:00.960 patron of the family who is a criminal and who's 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:05.240 doing really really well. But his dad's never doing really well. 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:06.040 His dad's just. 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:09.720 Kind of windsor like house of like royalty. 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:11.879 Yeah, but no, he's not royal. It's just also a 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:13.880 name Windsor I. 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:18.240 Was like, I was like British windsor the Queen's Corgies. 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:19.240 What's happening. 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:22.880 No, he's not. There will be royal family connections later, 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:25.359 but not at this stage. This is just a guy 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:26.440 with that last name. 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:27.760 Got it, got it, got it my bad. 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:31.639 So from the jump, Jimmy grows up close to and 0:18:31.720 --> 0:18:34.720 comfortable with some of the more mainstream elements of organized 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:38.359 crime in his society, and he probably grows up aware that, like, 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:41.359 the people who do best are the people who are 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:43.800 willing to break the rules. And because my dad is 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:46.280 kind of scared of going too far, we never had 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:48.800 a lots as opposed to his boss. Right, it was 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:52.400 a bolder man was willing to commit crimes and get arrested. 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:57.080 So the family is like working, lower middle class, but 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.040 he does get to see how the big shots do, 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.439 and he kind of comes to want that for himself. Now, 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:07.680 despite the fact that Jimmy often portrays his family as 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:12.240 being quite poor and like unusually poor. It's noted by 0:19:12.520 --> 0:19:15.000 people who knew them that Agnes actually like the family 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:18.480 owns an unusually large home. His mom makes them buy 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.359 a larger home than they can really afford, so like 0:19:21.400 --> 0:19:23.560 a lot of the rooms are kind of empty. I 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:26.480 think because she wants a big nice house is like 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:30.160 a status symbol, right, so she has to budget really carefully. 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:32.840 But they're able to afford the house, so they're doing okay. 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:34.680 He goes to school. 0:19:34.880 --> 0:19:36.399 I was gonna ask you if they lived in one 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:38.280 of those council estates. 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:40.080 But no, not, no, they're not that poor. 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:43.080 No, they're not that poor. They're certainly not the bottom 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:46.520 rung in terms of like poverty. They're not like comfortable, 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:50.000 I wouldn't say, but they're getting by. And even though 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.360 this house is kind of bigger than they could afford, 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.679 his mom is really good with stretching their money and 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.320 he's able to like, they're able to afford it. And 0:19:58.359 --> 0:19:59.720 this is kind of he becomes like a hand me 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:01.960 down kid. He's known in town. Is like he does 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:04.040 he never no one ever buys clothes for Jimmy. He 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:07.040 wears all of his older siblings clothes, which a lot 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:11.320 of people you know, grew up with that experience. Yeah. 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:10.959 Uh. 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:13.720 He goes to school in town, and the main method 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:16.320 of discipline in Jimmy's era and the place where he's 0:20:16.359 --> 0:20:18.760 going to school, is that the headmaster will beat you 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:22.320 with a bamboo cane if you're bad. This is not 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:27.360 again weird for the time, but ow but ow. Because 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:30.639 Jimmy is so sickly, he qualifies for free milk and 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.360 a free spoonful of malt at school each day, which 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:36.920 I think I think they're trying to help him avoid 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:39.040 getting rickets. I think that's why they get him a 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:44.119 spoonful of malt. I forget exactly why got in town. 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:46.440 Yeah. Yeah, that's a very. 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:51.400 Like twenties thirties thing, right, the sick kids get free 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:55.840 milk and malt. This is also something he writes and 0:20:55.880 --> 0:21:00.480 talks about constantly because it reinforces his underdog narrative. Agnes 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:03.919 drove the family and they were with Agnes is like 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.720