Jimmy Savile: Every coin has two sides

Jimmy Savile: Every coin has two sides
After the debacle caused by the revelations about his alter ego, after the dust has settled, there must be a time for reflexion about the other side of Jimmy Savile, the Jim Will Fix It Persona. Hearing what some people say about his charity work being a smoke screen, I beg to disagree. I think that the environment in which he worked allowed his dark side to get out of control but I reckon that as producer, presenter, organiser and charity campaigner he was no different from any other producer, presenter, organiser and charity campaigner and got involved in television and charity work because he actually enjoyed his profession and also enjoyed meeting people for the right reasons.

I don’t think that for those who were close acquaintances Jimmy Savile’s eccentricity and dubious behaviour were a secret. The issue is that they knew him but they chose to look the other way and pretended that if few people knew about what was going on everything would be fine. The culture of secrecy was fertile ground for the dark side of Jimmy Savile and for the dark side of many others.

I take a list of names – Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. People loved them, loved their music and loved their public images. As artists they were talented and successful but as people they were vulnerable, if not more vulnerable than many of us are. Amy battled against her addiction to drugs and alcohol, Michael battled against his social inadequacy having evolved from prodigy child to reach international stardom. In public, the extremely conflicted and isolated individual came to life. Whitney’s tragedy is that she couldn’t possibly fit in in the environment in which she grew up and till the end she struggled tortured by her lesbian tendencies.  Even at the height of her career she was using drugs in big amounts. This was her way of coping with her personal struggle and it was also what killed her. So, bright side and dark side come in the same package as two sides of a coin.

Many years ago, a prominent Conservative politician rumoured to be a potential Prime Minister was found dead. He had suffocated when using a plastic bag to deprive himself of air as a way to increase sexual pleasure. Learning about his untimely death, the first reaction was shock followed by utter disbelief. Somebody who was respected and admired in political circles was suddenly seen as the vulnerable man that he was.

Sometime ago, a transvestite was thrown onto underground train tracks and killed by a passing underground train. We were later told that the said transvestite was an extremely successful and very clever barrister that used to dress as a woman and offer sexual services. Once again, the two sides of the coin.

I reckon that if we spend enough time and did the necessary research we could find that the ‘two sides of the coin’ situation is more common than many people think or want to accept that it is.